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is it safe to delete temporary project files?

Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 1:39 pm
by bblairking
this may be a dumb question. I'm not a PC pro. I'm running XP home version & I have a question about audacity 1.3.12 beta.

I use the program very successfully, but I have a question. on my Hard drive* in my Local Settings folder there is a folder Temp and within that there is a folder named audacity_1_2_temp. within that there are 2 project files (project16018 & project16247). in the sub-folder e00, there are more sub-folders (E.G.; d0c, d0d, etc.) these sub-folders are loaded with over 6Gb of various files (E.G.; .au, .auf).

if I am finished with my project(s) and have saved any file(s) that I want, is it safe to delete these folders/files? I assume it is safe, but I want a second opinion. I don't wish to delete anything that would compromise Audacity or any PC operation(s).

*example: C:Documents and SettingsUserLocal SettingsTempaudacity_1_2_temp ...

thanks in advance.

Re: is it safe to delete temporary project files?

Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 8:23 pm
by Gale Andrews
If you have started a new project then save the project and exit cleanly, Audacity should transfer the data in its temp folder to a _data folder in the same directory as the .aup project file you saved. It should then remove any "project" folders remaining in the Audacity temporary directory. Audacity has no need of those temp "project" folders thereafter unless you are recovering from a crash.

Just make sure there are no folders in "Temp" called "_data" which would belong to a saved project. There shouldn't be such, unless you were saving projects into the Audacity temporary folder. That would be a bad idea and potentially dangerous if cleanup software sees them.

The temp location you give is that for Audacity 1.2. I would check in 1.3.12 at Edit > Preferences: Directories what the 1.3 temporary directory is, and change it if necessary to something other than "audacity_1_2_temp" - it could create confusion otherwise. The change will take effect after you restart Audacity.



Gale