Hello!
I just checked and my temp folder is 47GB!
In the case in point, I have a 1,58GB Cache folder, a 38,3GB (!!!) Media folder and a 5.97GB Metadata folder.
Is this how it’s supposed to be? Seems too much to me.
I’ve already tried “Clean bundles” and “Empty trash”, but with no effect.
I have latest Plex Media Server on Windows 10 64-bit updated.
Thank you!
Which ‘temp’ folder are you referring to?
The one set in Settings->General->Server->“The path where local application data is stored”.
That is not a simple ‘cache’. It holds all plex data.
What is taking up space are most likely ‘video preview thumbnails’.
see https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/202529153-Why-is-my-Plex-Media-Server-directory-so-large-
Hmmm that’s correct.
That path does point to ALL Plex data.
However inside that folder, there is a cache folder.
On my server inside the Plex Media Server folder
metadata = 58 gig
cache = 102 gig
media = 33 gig
plugin support = 4 gig
All of these seem a little excessive to me.
That’s nearly 200gig!!!
This is really filling up my 256gig SSD
At what point should I expect to run out of disk space just for an application’s data (PMS)
And what does PMS do whan disk space is low?? Does it warn or just unceremoniously crash??
LOL my guess is the latter…
With that being said, what size system drive do I REALLY need just to support PMS data?
Oh… and what would happen if I were to MANUALLY clear out the CACHE folder?? Can someone explain the uses for those folders??
@jjrjr1 said:
cache = 102 gig
You have a Plex Pass. So this folder could hold ongoing Mobile Sync and Cloud Sync jobs. Especially if you have allowed your shared users to use Mobile Sync too.
It goes like this: shared user activates Mobile Sync, but doesn’t wait until all the data are transcoded and synced to the device. So they sit for months in this cache folder, taking up space and waiting for the moment the user’s mobile device is connected again.
Do also check for users which switched mobile devices recently. Sync jobs may still be active for an older, now unused device.
As for the rest of it, the above link holds a remedy.
Plus the butler can do a little housecleaning too.
I never mobile sync. Turned off for all my uses.
Never entered the Cloud sync stuff.
Just running Basic PMS.
What happens to fill that folder so much?
What happens if I delete the cache data?
The other directories seem a little ridiculous also.
I did edit my post with a couple extra questions after you originally saw it.
Could you help with those as well?
Thanks
John
Well did you check whether or not you have video preview thumbnails enabled or had them enabled once? I assume you are on windows?
If you are unsure navigate to the Plex Media Server folder you mentioned and search for *.bif
If you don’t want to use this feature (as it indeed is very space consuming) follow the link provided by otto.
As for comparison: My Metadata folder is 8.46 GB and I have roughly 1000 Movies, 6000 TV Show Episodes and probably about 25’000 songs. Your mileage may vary.
My cache folder is about 5 GB in size, about 3 of them are in PhotoTranscoder. Afaik this will hold part of your metadata (the nice posters, artist faces and so on) for different resolutions.
Check the Cache/Transcode/Sessions folder for size. Maybe the culprit is in there. I don’t know if you can delete the files in there but my bet is you can after shutting down PMS. (No warranty, never did that myself and have no idea if this is okay.)
@jjrjr1 said:
I never mobile sync. Turned off for all my uses.
According to tech support, your server has allowed Mobile Sync for 9 of your shared users.
Dive down one level further into the cache folder and inspect the size of the Transcode subfolder. If this is bigger than 0, you have either a playback with transcoding going on, or some of the above mentioned Mobile and/or Cloud Sync jobs are waiting.
What happens to fill that folder so much?
Follow the link above.
If you still have the ‘video preview thumbs’ activated, the required space depends on the overall playback time of all video in your libraries.
If you have a lot of photos in Plex, these all generate massive amounts of resized, cached photos for display in the various clients.
What happens if I delete the cache data?
Your server may behave weirdly. Missing posters, missing subtitles (those which were automatically downloaded by the opensubtitle agent and similar agents).
Some of these issues may only be solvable by Refreshing all the affected media. Which then will restore the previous state.
The other directories seem a little ridiculous also.
Don’t forget that you are looking at a server and not a single-user app.
Additionally to the originally sized posters (which are quite high in quality), Plex is caching resized versions of all posters, backgrounds, banners and preview still pictures, scaled individually for every different client app. Some of these client apps even have a user selectable preference for poster size, so this creates even more ‘cacheable’ data.
But the regular cleanup jobs of the butler should take care of that.
Could you help with those as well?
I can’t give you detailed info which folder holds what type of data and if it is safe to erase them.
I explicitly advise you to not go into there and erase manually.
If your SSD is getting full your first measure would be to deactivate video preview thumbnail generation and to erase the alredy existing video preview thumbnails.
Then activate the Scheduled Tasks for ‘house cleaning’.
If that still isn’t enough, you must think about a larger SSD or to move the plex data folder to a different (local) hard drive.
Here is a guide how to do that in Windows https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/851746/#Comment_851746
