temporary files eating up space on hard drive

MM
Posted By
Mac_McDougald
Jan 25, 2004
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2885
Replies
21
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Closed
You *need* temp files.

They *should* be deleted when the app creating them is sucessfully closed. They can remain if you hang or crash.

In Win9x, temp files are generally in windows/temp.
However, Photoshop/Elements can also leave a single large one in root of drive(s) used for primary/secondary scratch.

Safest to delete .tmp files only right after a restart.

Mac
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TR
tom_reilly
Jan 25, 2004
Using a Visioneer 9020 to scan my 35mm slides, I import the images to Adobe Photoshop Elements 1.0 then save them to a CD.
I must be generating some temporary files which remain on my hard drive because of the amount of space that is being used in the process.
If I’m correct, where can I find these files in order to delete them and how do I turn off the automatic creation of temporary files?
RB
Ralph_Brannon
Jan 26, 2004
After a restart, go to find or search on "MY COMPUTER", and search for *.tmp It is ok to delete these files. As Mac says, if you get a crash, especially during using photoshop, it will leave some huge files.

Ralph
<http://www.darkstar.us>
MM
Michael Moody
Jan 26, 2004
Try Run, %temp%, Ctrl A, and Delete.

wrote in message
Using a Visioneer 9020 to scan my 35mm slides, I import the images to
Adobe Photoshop Elements 1.0 then save them to a CD.
I must be generating some temporary files which remain on my hard drive
because of the amount of space that is being used in the process.
If I’m correct, where can I find these files in order to delete them and
how do I turn off the automatic creation of temporary files?
TR
tom_reilly
Jan 26, 2004
ok … i’ve deleted all the *.tmp files which amounted to just over 1MB ….. there are still about 250MB of files which have to be related to APE because that’s all I worked with since the space started to be used up
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Jan 26, 2004
Tom, you can do a search for files based on when they were written to the hard drive; that might help pinpoint it further.
MM
Mac_McDougald
Jan 26, 2004

1. windows swap file?
2. Have you restarted since running APE? Adobe scratch disk area may still be allocated.
3. well, you’ve been *saving* files since installing APE, right?
4. Of course, if 1/4 GB of HD space is critical, your HD is too small!
Really.

Mac
EW
Ed_Wurster
Jan 26, 2004
wrote:
Using a Visioneer 9020 to scan my 35mm slides, I import the images to Adobe Photoshop Elements 1.0 then save them to a CD.
I must be generating some temporary files which remain on my hard drive because of the amount of space that is being used in the process. If I’m correct, where can I find these files in order to delete them and how do I turn off the automatic creation of temporary files?

How large is the hard disk?

Ed
TR
tom_reilly
Jan 26, 2004
about 3.5 G
NS
Nancy_S
Jan 27, 2004
Tom,

Have you considered adding more HD space? Images do require a lot of real estate, especially when in the .psd format. However, the .psd format is what you want to use for editing your images so you can maintain quality and save the layers with the image.

Perhaps an additonal HD would be a good upgrade for you, perhaps an external one if you don’t want to mess around with the computer’s innards. Programs keep getting "beefier" too. I think for a small investment you could be freed from having to be concerned about remaining space on your HD. I’d hazard a guess that the majority of people have an 80G HD these days and many of us have much larger ones.

Nancy

—edit: I think Jane added an external HD to her computer. You could start a new thread and get some thoughts on the subject.
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Jan 27, 2004
Nancy, hard drive ‘creep’ is an insidious disease that accelerates over time. My computer’s native hard drive is 30 GB; didn’t take long to fill after buying my first digicam almost two years ago. Hard drive #2 (internal) is 80 GB; that came close to filling last week. Enter hard drive #3: 160 GB (external). Now it could be argued that I should take some of these images off the drives; after all, they are backed up on CD’s. However, what if the CD doesn’t work? So the process goes on….. What’s the next level after gigabytes? Terabytes?

🙂
DS
Dick_Smith
Jan 27, 2004
Chuck, sounds like you need a RAID array!
NS
Nancy_S
Jan 27, 2004
Chuck,

but ya gotta admit 3G is very limiting for a number of reasons….eh?

Nancy
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Jan 27, 2004
Nancy – amen to that! Even without Elements and related imaging programs, the rest of my software takes up considerably more than that. At the current price of less than a dollar per gig (internal), it’s a great investment.

Chuck
LM
Lou_M
Jan 27, 2004
And to think a single PSE image with a modest amount of enhancing could have easily filled up the first hard drive I ever bought (30 MB).

I’m somewhat limited in that my main computer is a notebook (no internal expansion), but an external Firewire (or USB 2.0) drive conveniently fits the bill.
EW
Ed_Wurster
Jan 27, 2004
wrote:
Chuck,

but ya gotta admit 3G is very limiting for a number of reasons….eh?
Nancy

How small the HD feels is a matter of age. Over time you accumulate lots of things that you do not want to delete.

When I first installed PSE2 I had 10GB free out of 20GB. With a digital camera and PSE2, I was eating up free space. Even more important I was fragmenting the drive. This hurts the performance of the OS and PSE2 which need lots of CONTIGUOUS free space for maximum performance.

I added a 2nd drive, and set PSE2 to use that as scratch disk. This has helped a lot.

For most, I think it makes more sense to buy a new machine with an 80GB or larger drive.

Ed
DS
Dick_Smith
Jan 27, 2004
How about this development in hard drives? Toshiba has announced a new miniature hard drive about the same size as the Japanese 500yen coin.

It only has 2-3 gigs of storage, but the size is amazing.

If you’re viewing this on a newsreader, try this link: <http://ncsmiths.com/images/toshiba2.jpg>
RF
Robert_F_Carruth
Jan 29, 2004
A tip and a question:

Tip: Not all temporary files have a .tmp extension. For example my Canon scanning software produces lots of .shd files of about 1.3 kb in the temp folder. To easily see the entire contents of the current temp folder click Start, Run and type "%temp%" (without the quotes) in the open box. Click OK. This works at least from Win 98 through XP. If you have multiple users log on as each and repeat. Delete everything except the temp folder itself. If a file (or folder) can’t be deleted or emptied from the recycle bin just restart and do it again. I’ve never caused a problem doing this since Win 3.1. Just lucky?

Question: What is PE1’s scratch file name or extension? (Yeah, I’m still on PE1.)

Bob
EW
Ed_Wurster
Jan 29, 2004
wrote:
A tip and a question:

Tip: Not all temporary files have a .tmp extension. For example my Canon scanning software produces lots of .shd files of about 1.3 kb in the temp folder. To easily see the entire contents of the current temp folder click Start, Run and type "%temp%" (without the quotes) in the open box. Click OK. This works at least from Win 98 through XP. If you have multiple users log on as each and repeat. Delete everything except the temp folder itself. If a file (or folder) can’t be deleted or emptied from the recycle bin just restart and do it again. I’ve never caused a problem doing this since Win 3.1. Just lucky?

Question: What is PE1’s scratch file name or extension? (Yeah, I’m still on PE1.)

Bob

PSE2 looks like \TEMP\~PST1956.TMP

Look for ~PS*.TMP and see what comes up.

I found two old TMP files in my folder, eating up 300MB disk space. This sounds like the culprit that Tom is looking for.

Ed
RF
Robert_F_Carruth
Jan 29, 2004
Thanks, Ed.

Did a search and no culprits found. This 9 month old Dell with XP home has been amazingly stable for a Windows machine but it doesn’t hurt to know where the dead wood can be hiding.

Bob
NS
Nancy_S
Jan 29, 2004
Robert,

In the search parameters, did you engage the option to look in Hidden and System Folders (from memory I think those were the terms)?
RF
Robert_F_Carruth
Jan 30, 2004
Nancy,

Thanks. Yes, I keep those options set by default. I’m actually happy that no left over scratch files were found. Means PE1 and XP are doing their job cleaning up. There are a lot of applications that don’t. (Canon’s Scangear Toolbox and an old Sony application that grabs stills off my camcorder are two good examples.) I guess I shouldn’t be too concerned with a 120 gig hard drive but I like to keep a neat PC. Runs better that way. 🙂

Bob

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