Item Explorer retrieves items and files from the vault and caches them on your local hard drive. Only one version of a given item or file is cached at a time.
For items, metadata about a specific item version is stored locally. For example, you can view version 4 locally even though version 6 is the latest in the vault.
Because items can link to files, Item Explorer also copies files from the vault archive to your local working folder, as configured when you created your local vault view. Files are cached when you perform Check Out, Get Version, and Get Latest Version operations, and when you preview a file from the Preview tab. Item Explorer does not copy a file if the correct version is already cached.
The main pane and the Version tab display the cached versions of items and files. The Version tab displays a warning if you do not have the latest version locally.
Cached files use local disk space. Clean your cache periodically to remove unneeded files; see SOLIDWORKS PDM File Explorer Help. Because items consist only of metadata and therefore have little impact on local disk space, Item Explorer does not have facilities for cleaning the item cache.