Every Web Page / Browser Window you open creates a Temp File, including AOL's. Rotating (changing) ads will also create some temps. If you do it through AOL, close all Windows -- Welcome Screen, Mail, and don;t "do" anything until the process finishes. Don't bother going back to check it-- once is enough. 3MB is rather small in the graphic-rich computer world of today. 500+ may only reflect that you: visited many pages; had many graphics/ads/pictures since the last time; opened more windows than on other days. It's always based on the user's usage of the Web (which includes AOL). Rather than doing it through AOL, why not do the same thing through Internet Explorer> Tools> Internet Options? Judy On 10/5/08, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: > I always go to settings etc. to get the screen that lets me 'clear my > footprints' before logging off of AOL. Then I shut down the computer. The next > time I boot the computer I go to the AOL Computer Check-up & clean my hard > drive of temp internet stuff & IE Cache. Sometimes there is only a few MB's in > the cache. This morning it was 3.0 MB. But I just went back to see what was > there after logging onto AOL. There was 596.9! So I clicked to clean it > again & it started giving me differing numbers. It went from 42.3, 25.3, 21.1, > 17.8, & 15.3. It took many clicks on the clean button to remove all of > that. Can anyone explain what is going on with this? Judy