Olajide TowojuWelcome to my blog, where today we’ll be discussing generating peak file Premiere Pro and freeing up some valuable space on your computer.
If you’re an avid video editor, you may have noticed that your Premiere Pro project files and media cache can quickly take up a significant amount of storage. This can not only slow down your computer but can also hinder your workflow.
In this blog, I’ll be walking you through the process of deleting generated peak files. So, if you’re ready to optimize your video editing workflow and free up some much-needed space on your computer, let’s get started!
What Are Peak Files, and Why Does Adobe Premiere Pro Generate Them?
Have you ever wondered or known the reasons why Adobe Premiere Pro generates peak files? When you import audio or video files to Adobe Premiere Pro, it creates a different format for these files and stores them somewhere it can easily access them as you work on your project.
Video editors deal with multiple files. Beyond thousands of media files, rendering files, autosaves, and backups But the dirty secret is that you already have files on your system, devouring valuable hard drive space, and you don’t even know they exist.
Until these peak files are generated for each clip, playing the video and audio won’t work well, and even if it does, there will be a little delay in the playback. You must allow Premiere Pro to generate this file.
Another bitter truth is that you can’t tell Adobe Premiere Pro to stop generating peak files or media cache, but you can specify the storage location. Complete the tutorial to learn more.
What exactly is a “peak file” or “media cache”?
First, what is a Peak file? Adobe Premiere Pro’s Peak Files are a series of help files that ensure your media and projects are running as smoothly as possible. Whenever you import a file into Adobe Premiere Pro, a variety of media cache files are automatically generated.
The potential downside here is that, after some time, the media cache can consume hard drive space, sometimes a lot. So, it is beneficial to know the location of these files and clean them up after generating the peak file.
This is very important and helpful so far, as you are still working on the project. When you finish the project, all of the Generated Peak Files in Premiere Pro cache folders remain on your drive, consuming and eating up system space.
Note: Whether you like it or not, each time you import new video or audio, Premiere Pro generates peak files. I assume you should know that if you are a pro.
In Adobe Premiere Pro, locate the generated peak files.
The location of these files can be very hard to find because you don’t even know they exist. If you have been using Adobe Premiere Pro for some time and haven’t deleted these files, today you are a lucky man. Whether you are a pro or new to Adobe’s hidden secrets, you need to delete them ASAP.
Windows: \Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common
Mac: /Users//Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common
How many files does Adobe Premiere Pro generate in the folder?
Four folders in total.
- Media Cache
- Media Cache Files
- Peak Files
- Cache for Team Projects
Can I delete all media cache folders?
Yes, go ahead and delete all the files in that location.
How do I delete these files and folders?
Adobe Premiere Pro needs to be closed; doing this while Premiere is open won’t work. Highlight all the folders and press SHIFT + DELETE on your keyboard. This action is telling your system to delete all these Adobe files.
Can I set the default location for peak files?
Yes, To do that, open Adobe Premiere Pro, click Edit from the drop-down menu, and then click Media from the sub-menu.
Now you can tell Adobe where to generate the file. Browse and select your preferred location. Generating Peak Files in Premiere Pro
Is there another way to find this file?
- Press START+R on the keyboard, type this without brackets (%temp%) in the box provided and click OK.
- Click Appdata
- Now, click Roaming.
- Click Adobe
- Click Common
- Now you can permanently delete these Premiere Pro cache files.
Check out: Premiere Project Downgrader: Convert Premiere Project To Older Version
Can I use this to boost performance?
Removing a media cache is unlikely to improve performance unless your hard drive is completely out of space. You can, however, slightly improve Adobe Premiere Pro’s performance by changing the location of peak files with the browse command (in Media Preferences). If you redirect folders to a separate (ideally different) hard drive, you may get a slight increase in performance.
More files to delete (as a bonus)
Press START+R on the keyboard, type this without brackets (%temp%) in the box provided, and click OK. In the pop-up folder, delete all the files in it. They are nothing but trash that is not located in the recycle bin. Deleting these files won’t cause any harm to your system or software.
