Internet Explorer: the growth of the Download Cache

Tony Ingraldi discovered that Internet Explorer 4.01's Download Cache file (stored in the Explorer Preferences folder on his drive) had mysteriously grown to 110 MB in size and keeps getting larger. This is not the same as the disk cache and thus cannot be adjusted from Explorer's Preferences settings.

In searching my notes, I found that Larry Neptune reported a similar problem last May: "With both IE 4.0 and 4.01 I've noticed the Download Cache file grows - actually 'explodes' would be a better description. In two or three days, It had turned into a 6-7 meg file! I hadn't downloaded too much - most stuff like FinderPop and small stuff - so it's not just coming from "downloads" all by itself.

It has not yet happened to me (my file is still only 25K in size). But clearly it is happening to some others. If your free disk space seems to be mysteriously shrinking this would be something to check. My guess is that simply trashing the file will eliminate the problem. Several readers report that selecting Download Manager from within Explorer, and selecting to delete all files listed there, will also reduce the size of the cache file.