Can't view Adobe Camera Raw edits in Adobe Bridge (CS6)

[Geoff79]

I thought this would be easy enough to find on the interweb, but as it's Adobe, it's not.

Hopefully this is a really simple issue with a really simple solution.

In the past, when I open up photos from Bridge into ACR, I do my quick edits (generally just a crop and straighten if required) and then click done. Then, when I view the photos in Adobe Bridge, I now see the new edited version of the photos. The crops and straightens are all visible in Bridge.

That is, until now. Now, I do as I did before, but after I have edited the photos, I cannot see the edits in Bridge. No matter how many edits I do, all I can see in the Bridge preview is the original shot. Anyone know why this changed, and how I can change it back? It's been missing for a while and I've lived without it, but it's now really starting to irritate me, as it's actually a great tool for further culls of photos in Bridge, rather than just opening and further editing them all in PS.

Anyone have the hot tip?

[tandeejay]

Anyone have the hot tip?

Um, don't use Adobe products?

Sent from my LG-M700 using Tapatalk

[nardes]

Hi Geoff

Sorry but I do not have a solution.

Are all your products that are up-dateable up-to-date?

I wonder if newer versions and subsequent releases of Abobe products will no longer work with their legacy software like CS6?

Cheers

Dennis

[Geoff79]

Hi Geoff

Sorry but I do not have a solution.

Are all your products that are up-dateable up-to-date?

I wonder if newer versions and subsequent releases of Abobe products will no longer work with their legacy software like CS6?

Cheers

Dennis

Thanks Dennis. I’m not 100% sure, but I’d assume everything that can be updated has been... I assume. I’ll see if I can check that.

[Mark L]

Did this start to happen when you started using the RAW files from your 80D??

[arthurking83]

Sorry can't help in a specific manner, but thinking of it logically(ie. where to look to find clues and or solutions).

Assuming you're shooting raw file, so your files are raws.
You use other Adobe software(in this case ACR).
Adobe doesn't edit raw file directly, so uses the XML sidecar file system, that when you 'edit' a raw file, you don't actually edit it at all!
You're editing(seamless to the operator) are just a set of instructions for the software to render an image according to how the steps are set out in the sidecar XML file.

So, edit your raw file in ACR, and your raw file is as you shot it in camera, and other than having been read by ACR, ACR only creates an illusion(via a temporary file created in the cache area) to show you that edits happen on the file.
Edits are stored in the XML file, physical changes are made to the temporary file in cache.

SO! .. the point of all this is .. Bridge is not seeing the XML files that ACR is creating.

I have basically zero knowledge of Bridge/ACR/Adobe in general! ... but for you to look into ... you want to look for settings/config areas in Bride that specifically relate to thumbnail caching : building : allocation : sizing : quality .. etc.
Any setting/config relating to the viewing and operation of thumbnails should at least give a clue as to what's going on(in the background).

Sorry to waffle on and on, but it's important for folks to understand how raw file systems work.
The modern era seems to have settled on raw file software that doesn't edit raw files, but uses the above mentioned side car file system.
Problem is, there's no industry standard for writing these sidecar files.
if I use Adobe <whatever> to edit a raw file, DxO software cant' see the edits, FastStone Viewer cant' see the edits.
Windows File Explorer also can't see the edits(assuming that the raw codec is installed on the computer) .. and on and on.
If I edit a raw file in DxO .. none of the above mentioned software cant' see the DxO made edits.

Just the shambles that the industry have created in trying to 'oneup' themselves over competitor software vendors.
It's just stupid!

Anyhow ... following on with the above sidecard file debacle that is the raw converter software industry! .. then it's logical that something within Bridge has got 'borked' .. ands it's not seeing the sidecar files that ACR is creating.

Question: Do you have Canon's DPP installed on the computer?
Reason is very simple.
Canon are the last proper raw converter that I currently know of(I think Pentax is also doing the right thing .. haven't played for a while)
BUT!! .... if you edit an raw file in DPP, DPP sets those edits in a sidecar WITHIN the raw file.

THIS is the way it should be done(not stupid sidecar files separate to the raw file) .. oops! sorry rant over
What this means(very important to understand the difference), now that the instructions for the edit are written within the raw file, the edits appear to have been made on the raw file. they have(but they hanven't!).
What's changed is that the sidecar file in the raw file also contains the thumbnail preview images, and these are updated too.
So edit in DPP, and Bridge HAS to see the edit(made in DPP) at least on start up.
Again, it depends on what settings/configs Bridge allows re the thumbnails and it's cache.

Like I said at the start .. can't really help 'specifically', other than to point you into a direction, hopefully to find a setting that may have somehow got lost in translation.

ps. trying to install Bridge to see if I can find something myself.

[John King]

Geoff, you have probably changed the default behaviour for thumbnail generation. Easy to do! I've done it myself both deliberately and accidentally. Buttons on top r/h side of screen in Bridge.

A quick workaround is just to refresh the thumbnail database (cache) from either the menu or by right click context menu. This can be done for one or many. On my tablet ATM, so can't be more explicit, sorry.

Sing out later today after my computer is on, and I've been to the tip if you're still having problems.

[Mark L]

So Geoff, while researching your question you've opened my eyes a bit more about what can be done in ACR. I'm used to doing it in CS6 though.
After said research I'd think there is no obvious answer to your question. Maybe the quickest fix is to simply uninstall and reinstall the CS6??

[farmmax]

I gave up using Bridge years ago. It seems to bog computers down.

I became used to viewing in Faststone and opening into ACR from there, simply by pressing the "E" key in Faststone. Then I discovered the custom Picture Settings I run in my Canon camera settings, were not being carried through to ACR, then into Photoshop (CS 5.1). That was a bit of a pain, so I revisited Canon DPP. That worked out much better. My Faststone is set to automatically open Canon raw images into DPP with the command Alt + 2, and from DPP into photoshop with the comand Alt + P. The images come into Photoshop as a .tiff, and with my custom Picture settings intact. I do feel the raw images are better converted by DPP than ACR.

I think Arthur is thinking along good lines. Even though you cannot see the editing changes in Bridge, are they being saved with the image? When you reopen the image in ACR, are all your original edits intact? If they are, I'd probably look at Bridge causing the problems.

I just opened Bridge CS5.1 and opened a canon raw image into ACR. I edited the image and clicked Done, just as you have been doing. Back in Bridge, my image is not refreshing to the edit either. On playing around I managed to get the thumbnails to show the edited version by right clicking on the thumbnail and choosing "Generate High Quality Thumbnail".

If I right click again and this time choose "Generate quick thumbnail" the thumbnail remains showing the edits. This suggests it may be a thumbnail refreshing problem.. I have to go back to work now, but if there is time tomorrow, I'll investigate further.

[arthurking83]

I gave up using Bridge years ago. It seems to bog computers down.

.....

I was going to reply immediately after my last reply with the advice ... just remove Bridge!

.. but that would have been a little too cheeky .. and not helpful.

I installed Bridge while replying, and had to close Firefox down for Bridge/Adobe to do "it's thing".
Now .. it's thing was supposedly just to open images, but it's thing also involved semi-crashing the PC.
First started off with the desktop program shortcut icons flashing/being zapped??
Desktop stopped responding .. only program I could get to run was Bridge, and had to force shut down FF as it wouldn't allow me to do anything.
Never seen anything like it .. till I installed Bridge.
Although, in fairness, after a reboot it did run smoother overall.

Anyhow .. had a quick peek about and found both the thumbnail settings and also a couple of cache settings and a setting for ACR in the preferences.
That was as far as I got really.

My issue beyond this point in checking out Bridge became one of infestation!

Check your task manager(Windows) and have a gander at how much malware .. oops I mean processes Adobe run in the background while your PC is just idle!
Check how much auto starting bloat they force on your PC.
Why do they need 2 or 3 arcane scheduled task set up on YOUR PC .. oh! ... sorry I mean their PC that you just so happened to have bought!

Nikon aren't saintly when it comes to their software, they force install crap that just isn't needed too, but the difference is that it's not coded so that you have no control over it at all.
Nikon just install a bit of bloat, that they think may be a good way to help the user. Easily killed using end process in Task Manager.
Try doing that with some of the Adobe processes!
Really!?.. is CC so important to digital life that it's a process that can't be terminated by the user supposedly in command of it.
That is, with no Adobe software running, you cannot easily stop the CC background service .. not that I really have a CC account, and FWIW .. why do I need one when Bridge is supposedly free to use(in perpetuity too!)

You can use Bridge for free forever, but it seems you need a CC account? So you can use it as you like .. as long as 'as you like' means it's 'as Adobe likes'!

Faststone FSViewer is OK, not particularly fantastic at cataloguing, but has it's uses, but for a like for like alternative to bridge, I think nothing(so far) beats XnViewMP.
This is free to use(paid for tho if you're a professional!).
Basically does the same stuff as Bridge, other than some of the annoying self promotional bloat services, masquerading as "publish" services .. that Adobe have forced on you in Bridge.
One thing I couldn't find in Bridge tho(which may or may not be important to you) .. is the ability to view images stored in a sub folder structure .. in recursive mode. That is the ability to see all images in a parent folder irrespective of the subfolders.
This is one feature I can't do without, and the option to use it is important for some data management processes.

For Windows users tho, I think the best program I've used so far for image cataloguing/management has to be M$'s Photo Viewer. Pity it's becoming less and less compatible, as it's now no longer maintained, and the useless replacement(Windows Photos) is the replacement. but for Windows users .. can't think of any better software for managing your images.

[John King]

Arthur, Bridge and CS6 Photoshop work fine on my 13 y.o. box running Windows XP Pro 32 bit with 4GB RAM (DDR2) and standard HDDs (no SSD) - that is to say, it isn't a fast computer ... .
I use this computer for all sorts of specific tasks, but mainly because my Minolta film/slide scanner s/w won't work with anything newer than XP.

My main w/s has an old but decent Core2 Duo, 16GB RAM, SSD and fast HDDs (with big caches). It is far faster with everything, of course. I also run CS6 Bridge and Photoshop on this PC, along with Photoshop CC and Bridge CC. All respond almost instantaneously.

Bridge and CS5 also work just fine on my wife's PC, which only has 8GB RAM.

This suggests to me that either you are doing something odd, or your computer is.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no apologist for Adobe! They rank (literally and figuratively ... ) right up there under Apple and Google for dreadful business practices and often (usually ... ) lousy programming, IMNSHO. At least Microsoft attempts to fix their errors, The other three just deny that they exist at all ...

[Geoff79]

Hey guys, thanks for all the replies.

I’ll look in more detail tonight in front of the computer, but off the top of my head, a few points;

Mark, I still have the vintage ol’ 70D, and it worked perfectly with it for years before the change.

Just a point of interest, Arthur, that I convert all my RAW files to DNG before opening them in ACR via Bridge. Again, I’ve done this all along. Not sure if that alters anything?

John, I’ll try your earlier suggestion and hope for the best; sounds like a possibility.

Oh, and yes, Farmax, the edits all take place and are still done when I open the pics up later... it’s just the preview in the Bridge folders that doesn’t show any change.

Thanks again for all the input everyone... I’ll see if a few things work ASAP.

[Geoff79]

Geoff, you have probably changed the default behaviour for thumbnail generation. Easy to do! I've done it myself both deliberately and accidentally. Buttons on top r/h side of screen in Bridge.

A quick workaround is just to refresh the thumbnail database (cache) from either the menu or by right click context menu. This can be done for one or many. On my tablet ATM, so can't be more explicit, sorry.

Sing out later today after my computer is on, and I've been to the tip if you're still having problems.

Ok John, I’m halfway there.

Couldn’t find anything in the Preferences/Cache menu that had an effect.

Loosely reading between the lines of what you said (I’m really not good with this stuff) I right clicked on a shot and noticed if I went down near the bottom of the pop up menu, if I click “generate high quality thumbnail” I can now see the changes in Bridge. So if I highlight all pics in a folder and do this, it generates the preview I’m after for all of them.

Problem is, it’s still not doing it automatically. I just tried it on a new shot in another folder, and the preview still doesn’t come up. Unless, I right click and select as above. Which is supper easy to do anyway and I can live with it, but I feel like I’m only a click away from have this become automatic again?

[John King]

Good oh, Geoff.

To refresh the cache and thumbnails in Bridge, select the item/s then right click on one of them. Select "Purge cache for selection". This refreshes the thumbnails and other cached images.

On the screen shot below, play around with the settings where the red arrow is pointing. These make a huge difference to how fast Bridge is, or alternately, the quality of the thumbnails, etc.



Hope this helps. Bridge and ACR are each enormously powerful tools.

There is a great book by Schewe and Fraser "Real World Camera Raw". I have the CS5 edition. It is fine for all later editions as well. It has a lot of info on using Bridge as well as ACR.

[Geoff79]

Good oh, Geoff.

To refresh the cache and thumbnails in Bridge, select the item/s then right click on one of them. Select "Purge cache for selection". This refreshes the thumbnails and other cached images.

On the screen shot below, play around with the settings where the red arrow is pointing. These make a huge difference to how fast Bridge is, or alternately, the quality of the thumbnails, etc.

https://canopuscomputing.com.au/zen2...een%20shot.jpg

Hope this helps. Bridge and ACR are each enormously powerful tools.

There is a great book by Schewe and Fraser "Real World Camera Raw". I have the CS5 edition. It is fine for all later editions as well. It has a lot of info on using Bridge as well as ACR.

Thanks John. Sounds like I’m almost there. I’ll have another look where your red arrow points tonight to see if I can finalise the fix.

[arthurking83]

Arthur, Bridge and CS6 Photoshop work fine on my 13 y.o. box running Windows XP Pro 32 bit with 4GB RAM (DDR2) and standard HDDs (no SSD) - that is to say, it isn't a fast computer ... .
...

To be sure, I didn't have issues with the speed of Bridge itself.
It was that after it installed, and then run, it caused the previously mentioned hiccups(mainly that FF stopped responding .. actually Windows stopped! .. and that it caused the desktop icons to flicker as tho the screen was dying/flickering.
I only have about 6 icons, as the desktop is primarily empty an black space image of the moon, so the screen was fine and the desktop image was fine .. icons flickering.

So it sounds like the cache is getting full, and or not updating.

One thing you can do if you're on Windows 10:

if purging the cache doesn't help, which it may or may not, remembering that it's not the images themselves, nor the actual thumbnails that tell the program how to render .. it's really the XML file.
Can't help with the location of the sidecar files tho.
BUT ... what you can do to 'reset' Bridge to start again is delete the directory under AppData that relates to Bridge.

So in Win10(dunno the location on earlier versions of Windows): Go to C drive, look for Users and then <yourname> ... whatever logged in name that your PC uses. eg. for me it's Arthur .. so C:/Users/Arthur.
If your install of Windows is not on the C drive then go to it's storage location .. this info assumes Windows is on C:\

In Users/Yourname you see an AppData folder. This also assumes that hidden files are set to be viewed. If you can't see AppData folder, up in Windows Explorer go to the View tab and look for the hidden files tickbox, and make sure it's ticked to show these hidden files.
The AppData folder will be slightly translucent, or semi greyed.
If you get to this point, inside the AppData foler are three folders. The ones you want are Local and Roaming. Nothing of interest to us in the LocalLow folder.
In both the Local and Roaming folders will be folders named Adobe
Inside these Adobe folders may be the folders to Bridge and ACR and whatnot.
If not, I'd say just work on the Adobe folder contents directly.

Assuming your profile name is Geoff on your Win10 PC, then the folder(s) you want to look into will be C;\Users\Geoff\AppData\Local (and Roaming)\Adobe\(whatever else in here).

Here comes the 'hard part' .. delete the folders pertaining to Bridge, or if there is no Bridge specific folder, then delete the contents of the Adobe folder.
Trouble I had doing this was that CC as a service is running all the time(ie. you can't stop it) .. and so there are some active files in these folders that can't be accessed, so you get a warning that so and so file can't be deleted .. I just skipped this, and just press skip until it continues to delete as much stuff as it allows.

Sounds a bit serious or perilous to delete 'system' files .. but it's not.
All this does is reset the program in question.
that is; if you delete the entire Adobe folder in AppData(both Local and Roaming) all you do is basically reset any installed Adobe software to a state close to freshly installed.

Note that in those two folders in AppData you will also find many folders/files of programs you may have long since removed!.
There are some programs that store all your data in this directory, so not recommended to delete stuff like an email client software folder out of here, as you will lose all your data(ie. stored/saved/archived emails).

Other than saved data, like the emails example above, you can actually safely delete the entire content so the Local and Roaming folders in totality and not really affect your computer and it's data.

So like the Adobe folder contained within, I regularly manage this location myself.
Nikons' software is just as blaoated in many ways and it stores thumbnails in cache in this area too.
I have a shortcut in my quicklaunch bar to AppData for this purpose!
After a very long time of operation, Nikon's ViewNX2 can become overburdened with it's own thumbnail cache too, I've had near on 6Gb of thumbnails in there at one point.
So navigate to it's folder in there, delete and done. VNX2 back to normal. A couple of times I've had a weird situation where the thumbnail shown(in the film strip) is not the image in the main window! ... delete thumbnails and VNX2 settings in Appdata .. all good again.

This method of management is actually an easy way to 'reinstall' software if it bugs you in any way. Delete the appropriate AppData stuff .. program issue usually solved.
Note that this is no guarantee to fix any issue .. eg. if there is just some bug in the way software work or intercommunicate amongst themselves.
And, be sure if this is attempted, that you're sure that the data is either backed up in some way, or that you're sure you want it gone.
eg. I use Thunderbird for my email client, and if I delete the AppData entry for Tbird, I lose all my saved emails, and settings.

Note this also works the other way around too:
Lets say you want to '(re)install' some software, which isn't uncommon .. maybe onto a new PC, and lets say in this case Adobe.
You backup the contents of the AppData entries for each program on the current install. .. eg. to USB drive or whatnot.
Now you want to install to a new PC, but can't be bothered going through the tedium of getting al your settings and or data going again, and you want it instantly and now!
Once the new install is made, prior to running the program, transfer the contents of the required AppData folder into the new install AppData location(making sure that each is the right stuff) .. and your program should be set up just as it was on the last install.

I do this for Tbird(in fact there's a small backup program for Mozilla software that does the exact same thing!), Nikon software, Firefox and whatever else (can't think now).

Sorry for the long reply, but if you don't have any luck using the prefs in Bride itself, I'd say just do the above to 'refresh' Bridge to a new state.
You won't lose Bridge, nor any of the actual image files, all you do is reset it to a new install position .. which means the window will be back to default .. if you have changed it to your liking. Also thumbnails(which is the point of this exercise!) will all need to be rebuilt again, so it could take time.
If, after doing something like the above you still have the same issue, then nothing can be done about it, and it's more than likely an incompatibility issue between the current version of the programs.

[Geoff79]

To be sure, I didn't have issues with the speed of Bridge itself.
It was that after it installed, and then run, it caused the previously mentioned hiccups(mainly that FF stopped responding .. actually Windows stopped! .. and that it caused the desktop icons to flicker as tho the screen was dying/flickering.
I only have about 6 icons, as the desktop is primarily empty an black space image of the moon, so the screen was fine and the desktop image was fine .. icons flickering.

So it sounds like the cache is getting full, and or not updating.

One thing you can do if you're on Windows 10:

if purging the cache doesn't help, which it may or may not, remembering that it's not the images themselves, nor the actual thumbnails that tell the program how to render .. it's really the XML file.
Can't help with the location of the sidecar files tho.
BUT ... what you can do to 'reset' Bridge to start again is delete the directory under AppData that relates to Bridge.

So in Win10(dunno the location on earlier versions of Windows): Go to C drive, look for Users and then <yourname> ... whatever logged in name that your PC uses. eg. for me it's Arthur .. so C:/Users/Arthur.
If your install of Windows is not on the C drive then go to it's storage location .. this info assumes Windows is on C:\

In Users/Yourname you see an AppData folder. This also assumes that hidden files are set to be viewed. If you can't see AppData folder, up in Windows Explorer go to the View tab and look for the hidden files tickbox, and make sure it's ticked to show these hidden files.
The AppData folder will be slightly translucent, or semi greyed.
If you get to this point, inside the AppData foler are three folders. The ones you want are Local and Roaming. Nothing of interest to us in the LocalLow folder.
In both the Local and Roaming folders will be folders named Adobe
Inside these Adobe folders may be the folders to Bridge and ACR and whatnot.
If not, I'd say just work on the Adobe folder contents directly.

Assuming your profile name is Geoff on your Win10 PC, then the folder(s) you want to look into will be C;\Users\Geoff\AppData\Local (and Roaming)\Adobe\(whatever else in here).

Here comes the 'hard part' .. delete the folders pertaining to Bridge, or if there is no Bridge specific folder, then delete the contents of the Adobe folder.
Trouble I had doing this was that CC as a service is running all the time(ie. you can't stop it) .. and so there are some active files in these folders that can't be accessed, so you get a warning that so and so file can't be deleted .. I just skipped this, and just press skip until it continues to delete as much stuff as it allows.

Sounds a bit serious or perilous to delete 'system' files .. but it's not.
All this does is reset the program in question.
that is; if you delete the entire Adobe folder in AppData(both Local and Roaming) all you do is basically reset any installed Adobe software to a state close to freshly installed.

Note that in those two folders in AppData you will also find many folders/files of programs you may have long since removed!.
There are some programs that store all your data in this directory, so not recommended to delete stuff like an email client software folder out of here, as you will lose all your data(ie. stored/saved/archived emails).

Other than saved data, like the emails example above, you can actually safely delete the entire content so the Local and Roaming folders in totality and not really affect your computer and it's data.

So like the Adobe folder contained within, I regularly manage this location myself.
Nikons' software is just as blaoated in many ways and it stores thumbnails in cache in this area too.
I have a shortcut in my quicklaunch bar to AppData for this purpose!
After a very long time of operation, Nikon's ViewNX2 can become overburdened with it's own thumbnail cache too, I've had near on 6Gb of thumbnails in there at one point.
So navigate to it's folder in there, delete and done. VNX2 back to normal. A couple of times I've had a weird situation where the thumbnail shown(in the film strip) is not the image in the main window! ... delete thumbnails and VNX2 settings in Appdata .. all good again.

This method of management is actually an easy way to 'reinstall' software if it bugs you in any way. Delete the appropriate AppData stuff .. program issue usually solved.
Note that this is no guarantee to fix any issue .. eg. if there is just some bug in the way software work or intercommunicate amongst themselves.
And, be sure if this is attempted, that you're sure that the data is either backed up in some way, or that you're sure you want it gone.
eg. I use Thunderbird for my email client, and if I delete the AppData entry for Tbird, I lose all my saved emails, and settings.

Note this also works the other way around too:
Lets say you want to '(re)install' some software, which isn't uncommon .. maybe onto a new PC, and lets say in this case Adobe.
You backup the contents of the AppData entries for each program on the current install. .. eg. to USB drive or whatnot.
Now you want to install to a new PC, but can't be bothered going through the tedium of getting al your settings and or data going again, and you want it instantly and now!
Once the new install is made, prior to running the program, transfer the contents of the required AppData folder into the new install AppData location(making sure that each is the right stuff) .. and your program should be set up just as it was on the last install.

I do this for Tbird(in fact there's a small backup program for Mozilla software that does the exact same thing!), Nikon software, Firefox and whatever else (can't think now).

Sorry for the long reply, but if you don't have any luck using the prefs in Bride itself, I'd say just do the above to 'refresh' Bridge to a new state.
You won't lose Bridge, nor any of the actual image files, all you do is reset it to a new install position .. which means the window will be back to default .. if you have changed it to your liking. Also thumbnails(which is the point of this exercise!) will all need to be rebuilt again, so it could take time.
If, after doing something like the above you still have the same issue, then nothing can be done about it, and it's more than likely an incompatibility issue between the current version of the programs.

Thanks Arthur. I’ll try to take that all in tonight in front of the laptop.

Unfortunately, I actually use a Mac, but I’m sure it all still more or less applies. It’s become evident to me where the issue probably arose, and that would have happened during one of my monthly system clean ups. As I only have a 128gb hard drive I have to keep on top of ensuring I have available space, which sees me regularly deleting cache related data. I’m assuming I inadvertently deleted something I probably shouldn’t have in these sweeps.

[John King]

Geoff, I always move the Bridge cache folder to my image drive. Physically move the folder, after changing the location under Preferences in Bridge. Shut Bridge down. Move the folder to the new location. Restart Bridge.I also always set Bridge to export cache files to folders.However, I would never recommend deleting files wholesale unless you know exactly what you are doing. I always leave all the other Bridge files and folders where they are (they're small). OTOH, my CS6 Bridge cache on my main w/s is around 60GB. The CC 2019 cache is in a different folder, and is similar in size. I try to prevent incompatibilities by keeping the programs as separate as possible. I do not know if the central cache data structure is the same for each version. My E-M1 MkII is supported by Bridge CC, but not by Bridge CS6.

- - - Updated - - -

Geoff, I always move the Bridge cache folder to my image drive. Physically move the folder, after changing the location under Preferences in Bridge. Shut Bridge down. Move the folder to the new location. Restart Bridge.

I also always set Bridge to export cache files to folders.

However, I would never recommend deleting files wholesale unless you know exactly what you are doing. I always leave all the other Bridge files and folders where they are (they're small).

OTOH, my CS6 Bridge cache on my main w/s is around 60GB. The CC 2019 cache is in a different folder, and is similar in size. I try to prevent incompatibilities by keeping the programs as separate as possible. I do not know if the central cache data structure is the same for each version. My E-M1 MkII is supported by Bridge CC, but not by Bridge CS6.

[arthurking83]

....

Unfortunately, I actually use a Mac, but I’m sure it all still more or less applies......

Ah!
In that case .. my reply doesn't apply.
I'm sure a quick search somewhere, or if anyone with Mac knowledge here, will reveal where the program settings for each user is located.
That's really all you want.

You'd be amazed at how many gigabytes of clutter gets stored there(that I know of at least on Windows).

Before I built my sons PC, he installed (Autodesk)Maya on my PC. I have a 250G SSD for all C drive stuff.
Anyhow, got his PC, and I needed to uninstall the copy off mine(student edition) .. etc.
After uninstall, over 10Gb of leftover stuff remained on my PC, which I deleted out of this user settings area just from Autodesk flotsam that remained AFTER uninstall!

I think I deleted a bit over 20Gb(had 140+, now back down to 116Gb) all up, including a bit of other crap that remained in that location.

One major issue with Windows that I know of at least(among a myriad of other small issues that each operating system has) .. but I'm imagining for people that share Windows PCs with a few others(ie. multi User Windows setups).
The mind boggles thinking of the waste that each User-data-program-settings contains for some programs ... even after they're uninstalled.

I have no idea on the inner workings of Macs, but the other side issue can be that, as said above, after uninstalling the program, that AppData stuff doesn't get deleted(fully .. ever!)
Very few programs I've yet come across will actually fully delete themselves from the computer .. those that do are usually freeware programs(eg. Fastone) and very lightweight in storage space.
Never seen Adobe do the right thing, and when I installed and uninstalled Bridge yesterday, I made sure to tick the box to not save user settings.
You'd assume that wanting User settings removed when uninstalling would remove that AppData stuff ... but of course it doesn't.

I'm not sure if you'd inadvertently mucked up the way Bridge works tho, with you're 'sweep'.
The cache/thumbnails area having got deleted will just rebuild itself again.
The only thing you may have done is to remove the sidecar files(I'm pretty sure use the .xml file extension in Windows .. no idea for Mac) .. so that Bridge doesn't know how the file was edited.
But in that case, neither should ACR.

Would be interested to know if you get it sorted, and note down if it was stuff you did, and or what you did to sort it.
No doubt that someone else will have/had the issue at some point too, resolution would then help others later.

[John King]

Arthur, you ought to try AVG!

After uninstall, I ran an AVG clean tool. On a number of machines, it took multiple reboots to fully clean the PCs.