Keep adding and deleting clips to the timeline as you work
In my example, I had the RAM usage skyrocket from ~1.8 to 3.3 GB of RAM used.
Removing the files completely, both from the project bin and the timeline dropped down the RAM usage to 3.0 GB. The only way to go back to the “real” memory usage is to completely reopen the program.
Is this some kind of caching function? If so, it doesn’t seem to be working correctly. Is there a way to turn it off, or limit it past a specific file size?
Reloading the program, even with a bunch of clips added lowers down the file size, but it seems every time I skim the timeline, it fully loads every single clip into RAM and makes it stay there until I restart the program. Is this intentional, or should there be a size limit at which point some files become unloaded?
Just adding clips and then removing them from the timeline AND project folder does not lower the RAM size at all. The only thing that actually makes the RAM size go back down to 0 is restarting the program. This was not always the case, as I remember specifically NOT having these issues throughout 2024 and 2025 (when I was using 24.08 iirc).
I have uploaded a video that shows an example of how memory is not properly freed and ends up bottling up as you keep working on a project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5lxgjwy7fc
Using over 3GB of RAM on an empty project with 0 clips is definitely not intentional.
This isn’t a 25.12.1/2 issue. It’s been like that for as long as I remember using Kdenlive. The clips you added to your project are kept in memory cache (greatly oversimplified) so you can easily undo/redo any changes.