Heavy disk usage when PHP Built in Web Server runs > 24 hrs
I noticed now on several projects, that when the PHP built in Web server runs for too long it begins to cumulate disk space heavily.
I agree that it is probably not the cause of PHP Storm itself, but wonder if there is a way to limit disk space usage, or said otherwise: I do not know where this high disk usage comes from.
As an example: I started yesterday a dev server let it open overnight and today noticed that over 50GB disk space where used by PHPStorm (I assume it was the web server as it only happens when the server is running).
Any clue on what may consume so much disk space and how to limit that?
Thx
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Hello Preolon,
Let's start with the basics: what is your OS? Based on that, we can try to use corresponding tools to catch and find out what exact files the IDE mostly writes to.
Do you have quality tools or file watchers configured?
Thx Anasatasiia.
On PHP Storm I have Qodana installed (but not paid for). File watcher as far as I know none…
I can add the one project I am workig with is an older Laravel7 App with Vue2/blade.
(Though the other app was laravel 12 vue3)
but actually I noticed it on the Laravel7App
What is your OS? And whether you have anything configured in Settings | PHP | Quality Tools and in Settings | Tools | File Watchers?
I made progress through another path:
Btw: I Use Mac OS 15.7.4 and PHP Storm 2025.3
Clean My Mac showed me that a JetBrains Folder was weighting nearly 12GB right now, and from previous experience I remember that it was this folder weighting several dozens of GB.
The path is: /users/myuser/Libraries/Logs/Jetbrains
there specifically the folder: PHPStorm2025.3
and within that, the folders:
- threadDumps-Dispatchers.Default-20260326-110053-PS-253.32098.40 (7.5BG)
- threadDumps-Dispatchers.IO-20260326-110053-PS-253.32098.40 (3.65GB)
These thread dump logs begin to cumulate very much disk space over the day and over several days much more
Apparently they cumulate very much disk space when a PHP built in web server is used, which I usually do.
Hello,
Do you recall if these folders were full of relatively small files or there were a few large `.txt` files?
If you still have the folder, I was wondering if you could upload one of the files to our upload services:
https://uploads.jetbrains.com/
Hi, I had deleted the folder but I restarted the server and within half an hour it had already 100MB (threadDumps-Dispatchers.Default-20260330-105928-PS-253.32098.40 folder… the dispatchers.IO Folder fills more slowly),
There are written around 1-4 txt files of around 3.5-4MB every minute, (WebServer started, but not navigating or doing anything)
I uploaded some of the latest files…
I will check end of the day if there are big files, until now all weigh 3.5-4MB.
Apparently it does not depend on if the PHp built in webserver is started or not
Upload id: 2026_03_30_n7sPGW3CXhisBdUo4goZrH (files: threadDump-20260330-112013-1774880413658.txt and 7 more)
PD: Since 25.3.4 I get this error in the IDE everytime I start up, don't know if it's associated to the log issue:
File '~/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/PhpStorm2025.3/plugins/space/lib/space-idea-sdk.jar' contains invalid plugin descriptor
new comment to refresh this thread.
Any news?
threadDumps-Dispatchers.Default-20260403-180055-PS-253.32098.40
> 36.37 GB
So the longer the app is open, the heavier the folder gets. and after closing the app the folder gets not cleaned.
A log rotation implementation would be nice…
Haven't upgraded yet to latest PHPStorm
Hello,
As it turns out, it is a confirmed regression:
https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IJPL-241850/IntelliJ-is-generating-tons-of-thread-dumps
The fix is expected in the nearest updates, but for now, you may want to apply a workaround from the aforementioned issue. I will quote it here too:
Click IDE main menu
Help | Edit Custom VM Options, add the following option on a new line and restart the IDE: