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HandBrake's own folders are small. The rips and test encodes around them are not

HandBrake keeps logs, previews and presets in its container folder on a Mac. Where they are, what is safe to clear, and where the real gigabytes usually sit.

3 min read

Current HandBrake releases are sandboxed, so their data is not in ~/Library/Application Support/HandBrake any more. It lives inside the app's container. Older releases used the plain path, and a Mac that has had both may have both.

H=~/Library/Containers/fr.handbrake.HandBrake/Data/Library/Application\ Support/HandBrake
du -sh "$H" "$H"/EncodeLogs "$H"/Previews 2>/dev/null
du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/HandBrake 2>/dev/null   # older releases

What is safe to clear

  • EncodeLogs: one text log per job. Safe to empty.
  • Previews: preview images and clips from the preview window. Safe to empty while HandBrake is closed.
  • UserPresets.json and Queue.hbqueue: your presets and the queue. Keep these.

Where the space usually is

HandBrake's own data rarely passes a few hundred megabytes. The large files are its inputs and outputs: disc rips waiting to be encoded, and test encodes saved next to the final one. Sorting your destination folder by size shows them quickly.

find ~/Movies ~/Downloads -maxdepth 3 -type f \( -name '*.mkv' -o -name '*.mp4' -o -name '*.m4v' \) -size +1G -exec du -sh {} + 2>/dev/null | sort -h

Related: compress a video on a Mac and video projects and render files.

Common questions

Where does HandBrake store its logs on a Mac?

In current versions, in ~/Library/Containers/fr.handbrake.HandBrake/Data/Library/Application Support/HandBrake/EncodeLogs. Releases from before the app was sandboxed used ~/Library/Application Support/HandBrake/EncodeLogs.

Is it safe to delete HandBrake's EncodeLogs and Previews?

Yes. They are logs and preview files. Keep UserPresets.json and Queue.hbqueue, which hold your presets and the encode queue.

Why is HandBrake using so much space?

Usually it is the source rips and the encoded files, not HandBrake's own folders. Look for large MKV and MP4 files in Movies and Downloads.

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