What files are safe to delete?

[imacken]

There are hundreds of files in Song folders in the Media, Cache, Bounces, History etc. folders. Most of my songs are just a recorded track of my guitar playing over a backing track and I have deleted all in unused files in Studio Pro, but there are sill hundreds of files kicking around.
Which of these are safe to delete?

 

[SwitchBack]

You can delete the Cache folder. This may cause the song to take a little longer to open: Wait for the Cache Activity meter to stop spinning.

You can also delete the History folder, provided that you're happy with the most recent version and have no need to roll back.

As for 'Delete Unused Files': Unless you tick 'Delete Files Permanently' this only breaks the song's links to those files but doesn't delete them. To see what's still used by a song you have to check its Pool, which can be a tedious job.

A trick can be to rename the Media and Bounces folders of a song (or move them to the bin) and then open the song. That will tell you which files you have to put back, before permanently deleting the rest.

 

[imacken]

Thanks for that. Honestly, there should be an easier way!

 

[SwitchBack]

Part of it is to stay disciplined, as S1/SP will not decide for you on what can be deleted permanently. It becomes especially tricky when you have songs use files from folders outside their own root folders, e.g. use files from other songs. Those files may get deleted when those other songs get a clean-up. Hard for S1/SP to decide if that's the case, so deleting files permanently will always be left to the user.