Safe to remove photo cache files?

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Level 1

9 points

Safe to remove photo cache files?

Hallo, I use "Clean my Mac 3" to tidy up my computer, and it always went fine. But I never dared to let it touch my Photo library, which is stored in iCloud, and on my computer as well, I think. I want to keep most of the of the raw-files, that it suggest that I should delete. But maybe I should let it delete all the cache-files? It takes 24 GB of space on my hard drive. Its a really big library and I put a lot of work with it, tagged the pictures, different projects, a lot of editing etc. Do I dare?

iMac, macOS Sierra (10.12.2)

Posted on Feb 1, 2017 12:28 PM

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Answer 1

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Feb 1, 2017 1:00 PM in response to KalmarOlle

Yes it is safe to remove cache files but they may just be recreated next time you use Photos depending - I certainly would not use CMM to remove them and would always have a good backup before removing anything just in case

And CleanMyMac has a VERY bad record of damaging or destroying Photos library - the general recommendation here is to get rid of it - it is dangerous and does nothing the the OS doesn't do or you could easily do manually with not dangerous software

LN

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,645 points

Feb 1, 2017 1:00 PM in response to KalmarOlle

If you are asking about removing the iPod Photo Cache or the other Photo Cache folders created by syncing with iTunes you can remove them as described here in Apple's Support document:

About Photo Cache folders - Apple Support https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203156

These folders will be recreated, whenever you are syncing photos to devices. If you delete them, the next sync will be very slow.

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Answer 3

KalmarOlle Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 1, 2017 1:00 PM in response to LarryHN

Thanks!

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