Not sure where tp put this...
It would be under Programming of the IMVU client itself, but I don't see that
Anyway...

One of the things I notice about the standard IMVU client is its HUMONGOUS cache. It takes up quite a lot of space in the Windows User directory, and since the User directory is actually vital to the system, this makes system backups take longer. I hear you have your own version of the IMVU client. If I were possessed of a brain so large as to able to write such things, the forst thing I would want would be to relocate where the client stores its files. Put the program in a program directory instead of the user directory and let the location of the cache files be selectable by the user on installation, but defaulting to some cache directory that is not in either \Users or \Windows.


chown -fR us /your/base*

I adapted this from a TS4 reddit post I found, because there, the mods folder tends to get bigger and bigger over time and you surely don't want it on the same drive with your windows partition, so it applies to imvu caches just as well

Move your Httpcache folder to your external hard drive by clicking and dragging it from C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\IMVU to an external drive, or another partition while holding shift. Ensure that the popup that appears says "Moving files," not "Copying files." Once this step is complete, you should not have a Httpcache folder in your IMVU folder from your windows partition but you will have one on your external hard drive. If you want, you can rename it to something else to make your life easier (eg "IMVU Cache" in stead of Httpcache, so you know what it contains).

Press the Windows Key and X at the same time, and click "Command Prompt (Admin)". Paste in the following command:



Make sure you replace [insert path to the cache folder on external hard drive here] with the actual path to where you copied the mods folder onto your external drive (eg. "F:\Gaming stuff\NEW_IMVU_CACHE").

Go to C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\IMVU\HttpCache in the file explorer. If you see all your cache files.
If all goes well, this should create a symbolic link in your C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\IMVU folder that points to the folder on your external hard drive. If you have any more questions, let me know.

You did this on IMVU already? It really works?

That's pretty neat.

Keep in mind, the cache is actively used whenever you're using IMVU, moving it to a mechanical drive can impact performance. Of course this is assuming your OS runs off of an SSD or m.2 drive to begin with.

Personally, if my IMVU cache gets large enough to have any sort of impact on the system (which would take a very long time even if I was active daily) I would just clear it. The cache stores everything from product icons you've looked at in the shop to full textures to products. A lot of it isn't necessary and can be re-downloaded in milliseconds.

Check out my Cache Converter if you're interested in seeing what's in your cache: viewtopic.php?f=179&t=9073

Thank You! Yes, it works.
So you don't need "power shell" to make a link in Windows.
I am endevouring to make the old 'pooter faster and thinking about getting
a new computer next month - a Mac - since I don't like windows 10. Moving
caches to a second internal HD should speed things up a little, since both
are "mechanical" hard disks and the new one is, well, new. I also moved the
windows swap file.

There is the issue of "unnecessary" writes to disk on cheap SSDs. This is worth doing imo. Imvu should let you choose it too, natively.

I am pretty sure even cheap SSDs have great life spans these days. My old one lasted for 5 years with over 50TB of data wirrten to it and the only reason I stopped using it was because I upgraded to an m.2

But anyway, your solution is nice and I think is the best one. The only way to force the client to use a different folder natively would be to h4c|< it and that's just not worth it imo.

Yes the IMVU cache do be taking space on windows plus this also happened to me everytime i try to relocate older versions of IMVU updates on the catalog section. I also try to clear any unwanted applications that may disturb the cache process in order to keep the process progressing faster.

Ubiytsa wrote:

@Angel SYou did this on IMVU already? It really works?

Yeah, I had to do it, because unlike our friend @DM here, I forget to delete my imvu cache months at a time, so when I do end up deleting it, it's already a huge file.

I rarely ever clean my cache. I did it a few weeks ago but that was only because I re installed Windows when I got my new m.2 drive.

But anyway, I wasn't trying to dismiss your guy's issues just give another perspective on the matter. Like I said I think 's solution is the best for most cases.