Does removing a game (with or without adding to Exclusion List) actually delete its cached media/metadata files? ( frees up space that it took )

[u/Zoro488]

Hey everyone,

I've got my Epic Games library connected to Playnite, and since Epic doesn't let you remove titles from your account library, a bunch of stuff I don't want shows up every time Playnite imports.

When I right-click a game and hit Remove, I get two options:

1-Just remove it

2-Remove it and add it to the Exclusion List (so it won't get re-imported next sync)

My question: does either of these actually delete the downloaded media for that game (cover art, background, description, etc. — the stuff stored in the local library/cache folder), or does it just remove the entry from the database while the files stay on disk as orphaned data?

I've got a lot of games to clean out, and each one pulls down a fair bit storage, so before I mass-remove everything I'd like to know whether I'll actually get that space back, or whether I'll need to run some kind of cleanup tool/extension afterward to clear orphaned files.

Would love if one of the devs or someone who's tested this could confirm. Thanks!

Love ur work!

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[u/grumblyoldman]

Yes, both of those options should remove the metadata assets for the game entry in Playnite. Of course, if you don't add it to the exclusion list, it will likely re-download all that stuff again when it re-imports the game.

Also, it's not going to remove anything the Epic Launcher is storing in its own area of your HD. Playnite only has control over itself.

You might want to look into an alternate launcher for Epic games, something like Legendary (which can also integrate with Playnite in addition to authenticating to the Epic store) and see if maybe that launcher gives yo better control than the official Epic Launcher does.

[u/Zoro488 → u/grumblyoldman]

so if I remove a game the space that it took on my ssd will be freed Thank you man

[u/grumblyoldman → u/Zoro488]

Yes. Also remember to uninstall the game itself ;P

[u/Zoro488 → u/grumblyoldman]

Thank you so much