For some reason when I added all my movies and music, plex didn’t delete the temporary files off my PC. Now it’s using roughly 600GB of space and I need help. TIA.
What temporary files should Plex have deleted?
This is what some other users have told me but never followed up with me.
My main question is what is taking up so much room and how do I clean it up so it doesn’t consume so much of my hard drive?
600 GB seems on the high end, but depending on the size of your video library, it can generate a lot of metadata media. Stuff, like chapter thumbnails, posters, etc. The biggest culprit is likely to be “Video Preview Thumbnails”. These generate (if you turned it on) an image for every few seconds of a video from the start to the end. This tiny pic is what you see when you point at the progress bar in videos like Youtube or what-not. The thumbnail preview is useful if you want to go to a spot in the video based on its visual, but it can take a long time to do so and use a fair amount of space.
Again though, 600 GB seems like a lot. When I moved my install from one comp to another, I don’t think it used even 1/20th of that, and my media library is over 15TB.
1 Like
Did you by any chance “optimize” the video files inside Plex?
how can i clean this up to save space?
No. I dont think so.
In the end, the Plex server data directory will grow with your library.
If you’re seriously running out of space you can disable certain features mentioned by divideby0.
There’s an option in the advanced tab of each library where you can disable Video Preview Thumbnails (assuming that’s what’s eating so much space). There’s also a bright red button on the same screen to delete existing video preview thumbnails.
⋮ > Manage Library > Edit... → Advanced
It might be a good idea to do some general clean-up afterwards too:
- Open
Settings>Manage>Troubleshooting - Click
Clean Bundles - Click
Optimize Database
Agreed.
On a 140TB library with Video Preview thumbs enabled Plex uses around 300GB.
Ok thank you. I am not in need of the space but wanted to clear out any files that plex doesn’t use. BTW, if I delete a video or music from a folder on my PC, does would it clear out any remaining files on my PC. I hope you understand my question.
Once the item is gone from Plex, so will the related assets (images, preview…). Some of this will only happen as part of scheduled tasks (usually during night time).
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
