Clear Adobe Media Cache on Mac to Reclaim Gigabytes

Premiere Pro and After Effects build a media cache in the background — conformed audio, peak files, and render data that keep playback smooth. Useful, but it grows with every project you open and never shrinks on its own. On a working editing Mac it routinely hits 20–50 GB. Here's how to clear it safely and cap it so it never takes over your disk again.

Clear the cache from inside Premiere Pro

The safest route is the one Adobe built in, because it won't touch cache files a project currently has open.

1. Open Premiere Pro and go to Premiere Pro → Settings… (called Preferences in older versions), then pick Media Cache.
2. Next to Remove Media Cache Files, click Delete.
3. Choose Delete all media cache files from the system for a full clear. Close other Premiere projects first, since files in use are skipped.

Nothing of yours is lost. The cache holds scratch data derived from your source footage; Premiere rebuilds whatever a project needs the next time you open it. The only cost is a slower first playback while it re-conforms audio.

Empty the After Effects disk cache too

After Effects keeps its own disk cache, and on motion-graphics machines it's often the bigger one.

1. In After Effects, open After Effects → Settings… → Media & Disk Cache.
2. Click Empty Disk Cache…, then Clean Database & Cache.
3. While you're there, lower Maximum Disk Cache Size if the default is bigger than you want to give it.

Find the cache on disk and check its size

Adobe apps share one cache location. To see exactly how much space it's using, run this in Terminal:

# See how much space Adobe's shared cache is using
du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Common/*

Media Cache Files holds the conformed audio (.cfa) and peak (.pek) files; Media Cache is the database that tracks them. If an Adobe app won't launch or you've uninstalled the apps entirely, you can delete both by hand — quit every Adobe app first:

# Quit all Adobe apps first — the cache rebuilds automatically on next launch
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Common/Media\ Cache\ Files
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Common/Media\ Cache

There's no undo for the deletion itself, but none is needed: these are regenerable scratch files, and Premiere or After Effects recreates the folders and their contents automatically the next time you open a project.

Don't confuse the media cache with preview render files — those are stored per project, wherever File → Project Settings → Scratch Disks points. If a single project folder is enormous, that's usually the previews, and you can delete rendered previews from within the project instead. And because the cache lives inside ~/Library, it shows up under the vague "System Data" bucket in macOS storage settings — which is why an editing Mac's System Data often looks alarmingly large for no visible reason.

Cap the cache so this stops happening

Back in Premiere's Media Cache settings, two options keep it under control permanently:

• Automatically delete cache files older than — 30 days is a sensible default; finished projects stop hoarding space.
• Limit media cache size to — cap it at something like 20 GB and Premiere prunes the oldest files itself.

You can also click Browse to move the cache to an external drive. Only do that with a fast SSD — put the cache on a slow spinning disk and playback performance drops noticeably.

Where else the gigabytes hide

Adobe's cache is rarely the only culprit on an editing Mac. Screen recordings, old exports, and browser caches pile up in the same quiet way — start with a full breakdown of what's taking up space on your Mac before deleting anything else.