How to Clear Your Cache in Premiere Pro

Premiere Pro saves temporary media cache files of any file that you import into a project. In an ideal world, they’re supposed to make playback and editing smoother, but sometimes these files get corrupted or the cache ends up getting massive from projects you’re not even working on. This is how to clear your cache in Premiere Pro.

Related: How to Add a Freeze Frame in Premiere Pro

To delete the cache, open Premiere Pro without opening up a project, then click on Edit, then Preferences, then Media Cache. You’ll see a Remove Media Cache Files button. Clicking the delete will pop up another window that asks whether you’d like to delete unused media cache files or all media cache files. The first option only deletes files that can no longer be found in projects, so that’s not what we want. Deleting all media cache files will actually delete all of the files, so select this to clear your cache completely.

If you can’t open Premiere Pro, you can manually delete the media cache by navigating to the location. Here are the default locations, but if you’ve changed this location you’ll need to remember where you set it.

While you’re here, you might want to adjust some of your cache settings. You can browse a new location for your media cache. The default Adobe location will be on your primary drive where your operating system is installed, which can cause slowdowns. If possible, you should change your media cache so that it is on its own dedicated solid state drive, or at least on a solid state drive that isn’t your operating system’s drive.

You can also schedule automatic deletion based on storage size or time. Set a number of days or a percentage of storage drive size. The default values are a good starting point but you can adjust to your personal needs. Any changes you make will only be applied upon quitting and restarting Premiere Pro.

We hope that helped you empty your Premiere Pro cache. For more Premiere Pro and editing tips subscribe to FilterGrade.