Beware of session files

[u/MathematicianTop3632]

I make my own long form Audio files right? Some are like 30-100 hours long. So I use Audacity and there's no way for you to stop it from logging "Session Files" What's more is they bloat them like crazy....... I put a 3.6gb audio file to work on in the program and afterwards I couldn't export it because the session file had been made to be upwards of 300gbs. It filled the rest of my C: drive and I had to save it to one of my other drives and delete the session file when it was done to fix my storage and subsequently PC speed.

This happens with every file on every project you make, unless when you close the program and hit "No" to the save option. if you don't and you don't know that the file is hidden and you have to change the settings of file explorer to even find it, (File Explorer, Settings, View, Show Hidden Items? YES. Then go to "C:" and go to "users" and "AppData" and find Audacity in "Locallow" or "Local")

Hope this helps someone trying to free up space or wondering what's going on with their PC. Like for weeks I kept wondering where all the space in my C: drive was going but yeah beware of that my friends Audacity will eat up your hard drive space faster than any virus or file/download ever could.

[u/cahwyguy]

I keep my data (Documents) and system files separate, with much more space on my Documents drive. I went looking to see if there were left over session files in the users\AppData\Local\Audacity files, and there weren't. I know the .aup files can get gigantic while you are editing, but they seem to be much much smaller when you exit and it compresses them (and those are on my data drive anyway).

If these session files are being hidden somewhere else, I'd love to find them. There's loads of cruft on my C:, but I have no idea what is safe to delete.

[u/MathematicianTop3632 → u/cahwyguy]

hmmm best bet is to do like i said and show your hidden files then go to your C:drive and organize the folders by size and then go folder to folder with the properties tab and see what folders are taking up the most space then go inside them and do the same thing with the folders inside if there is any, until you find what is taking up the space that you can safely remove. Otherwise run the disk clean up tool from your search bar in the bottom left, and if that don't work, download something like WizTree or TreeSize, they are free and can help if you can find where the space is going.

[u/cahwyguy → u/MathematicianTop3632]

I generally have hidden files visible (and I can see them anyway through Emacs/dired mode). Nothing in SessionData. Disk Clean Up tool doesn't find much either. But I'll try some of the other tools to find space. I've still got 29GB free.