What Happens if I delete the CacheClip Folder?

I'm new at DR and have quickly found that my storage space is practically doubling!

I went searching in my File Explorer and noticed that the majority of the files are in a folder called: CacheClip.

1) What are these files?
2) Are they necessary?
3) What would happen if I delete the entire folder?

I clicked on Delete Optimize Media and Delete Render Cache (All) from the Playback Menu but that didn't seem to help.

Currently I still have Projects that I need to edit and Deliver so I am afraid that if I delete everything, I will lose access to my Projects.

Thanks in advance!

To the best of my knowledge, those are all files which can be rebuilt by Resolve. They're not critical.

If memory serves that's where optimized media, timeline thumbnails, and render cache is stored. If you delete it, Resolve will just regenerate it.

Assuming you have no working caches (you say you deleted everything from the timeline?), the typical cacheclip folder has large numbers of empty folders within empty folders, orphaned caches and audio support files.

The audio stuff appears to regenerate -- you may see a brief pause when an audio waveform rebuilds, for example.

It would be interesting to hear the official line on this one, but deleting this folder won't affect your projects. Projects are stored in a database, separate from the cacheclip folder. You can, for example, move a project to another system with just the media and the project file. You don't need to take the cacheclip folder.

So with much hesitation, I hit the delete button. But I was running out of space, so I had to.
Turns out, the CacheClip is being regenerated by DR and everything is ok!

Thanks for the help!

I clicked on Delete Optimize Media and Delete Render Cache (All) from the Playback Menu but that didn't seem to help.

it takes a very long time to do something, if you look at taskmangler you will see the drive with the caches running at 100% long after Resolve has told you it's done deleting the caches it's now deleteing

still better than a few years ago (v11) when it would hold the whole machine hostage untill it was done, now it sends you back to a working state while it deletes away in the bg

only downside is you have to leave Resolve open, and not count on much in the way of playback from that disk for the next while, but if stopping on a frame and gradeing, it's pretty transparent

and you will have to watch taskmangler to know when it's done, it will not tell you

Windows 10. 15 gigs RAM. DaVinci 17.3 - build 14

I have been working on a longform video for two years now - my cache clips folder is 1.6 T big! What happens if I delete these files? Any chance at all of affecting my project?

@TVDirector, if the source content are not outrageously large, you could export a full project archive (from project manager, right click on project -> Export Project Archive...) somewhere to feel like you have tucked away your project content. And even backup your Resolve database, which is probably a good idea anyway.

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=106267

After you remove the ancient cache and reopen your project, expect it to take a while to rebuild whatever current cache entries DR should be making use of...

Any chance at all of affecting my project?

No.

After you remove the ancient cache and reopen your project, expect it to take a while to rebuild whatever current cache entries DR should be making use of...

I know this is probably a stupid question, but is there any way of estimating how long this will take?

I imagine the number and size of projects plays a significant part, but are we talking minutes? Hours? Days?

Rendering "Optimized Media" seems to be a bottleneck - are those automatically regenerated? Does the user have any control of what cache items are regenerated?

While regeneration is happening, what are the effects on system performance?

is there any way of estimating how long this will take?

I don't think so. It really depends on how big your project is, how intensive your effects are, and how powerful your system is. I've already encountered extremely intense effects that I am simply avoiding until I get a good graphics card. I'd likely be looking at hours (at least) of caching if I tried to use these effects regularly.

At least, caching is happening in the background and stops when you work in DR, while rendering optimised media is blocking DR.
One of the weaker spots of DR, other NLEs, Final Cut Pro X for example, work on all of such processes in the background, even final render.

Rendering "Optimized Media" seems to be a bottleneck - are those automatically regenerated?

No, you have to re-create those manually...and wait for them to be created before you work.