A CFA file is a cached audio file created by several Adobe software programs, including After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Encore. It contains audio data that has been conformed to a proprietary Adobe format. CFA files are used for improving the software's performance when processing audio data and when generating audio waveform previews.

When importing audio data, the software transforms the audio into a format that can be quickly processed by the software. This removes the need for the audio to be reprocessed each time it is used. However, due to the caching, there may be a delay the first time audio is imported. CFA files may become very large in size. You can turn off the caching option within Adobe applications, but the processing time for audio previews may increase. CFA files are actually created by Adobe Media Encoder, a standalone software component that is included with programs such as Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Encore. All such programs reference the same audio cache.