Manually delete old .tmp files from hidden folder to free up disk space!
May 10, 2015
Just a house-keeping tip that I thought other people might find helpful:
I finally found the hidden folder that houses the auto-recover files created when Storyline 2 crashes and I was astounded to discover that there were more than 20GB of files in there! That explained why my virtual machine was always using up 3-4 times more space than I thought it should, based on the files and programs I had installed on there. It appears that, although Storyline automatically creates the .tmp files, it does not automatically delete them when newer files are created, so it is a good idea to check that folder on a regular basis and delete old versions that are no longer relevant to keep them from hogging all of your hard drive space.
For anyone who does not know how to find a hidden folder in Windows (I'm using Windows 7), open a folder window and click on the 'Organize' pull-down menu at the top-left of the window and choose, "Folder and search options". In the window that pops up, go to the 'View' tab and click the radio button beside "Show hidden files, folders and drives" under "Hidden files and folders", then click 'OK'.
Now, go back to your folder window and look for the path: /AppData/Roaming/Articulate/Storyline (it may differ for others but I found it under C:/Users/[my user name], then AppData/Roaming/ etc....).
Articulate staff member, Ashley Terwilliger, mentioned this path in another post about finding auto-recovery files (https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/storyline-2-autorecovery-auto-save-where-do-i-find-the-file#reply-212826):
If there are unsaved pending changes, an auto recover file is created for the project under the /AppData/Roaming/Articulate/Storyline path. This auto recover file is named using a format like this:
<name of the file witout .story extension><creation time stamp of the file>.tmp
So if you were working on a file called "my sample story.story" the auto recovery name might look like "my sample story635502380729253410.tmp".
I deleted all of the old .tmp files except for the most recent one for each of my projects and it freed up a lot of room and made my whole system run a lot faster. I have now made a shortcut directly to that folder that I keep on my desktop so I can go to it on a regular basis and clear out whatever isn't needed anymore.
Hope that helps someone!
48 Replies
Has this issue with .TMP files in the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Articulate\Storyline directory been addressed yet? My users are still having this issue. The .TMP files keep piling up until the C: drive is completely full. Having to navigate through Windows system folders in order to manually clean these up is really not an acceptable solution.
Ashley, if there is something else I need to do in order to fix this, please let me know.
Hello Todd and welcome to E-Learning Heroes :)
I see that Jim mentioned a similar issue, but I do not see where he reached out to the team, so I do not have an update to provide there.
Check out Ashley's solution here and be sure to reach out to our team so that we can help you out if needed.
This still happens even thought we are on SL2 Update 12. I just cleared out 5 GB out of the AppData folder.
I am wondering about the ApiCache folder and if it can be deleted. It is taking up 3 GB of precious space on my main drive.
Hi Alicia,
It looks like you're seeing that within the Articulate 360 folder, not Storyline 2? Are you also on the latest update of Storyline 360? That's update 16 and you can follow the steps here to look at updating.
Hi Ashley
This issue has very much re-appeared as far as I am concerned. I had most of the IT team look at this issue and the one thing I can say is Articulate 360 does not delete the temp files when closing or re-starting. Any help would be very much appreciated
Hi there, David. So sorry the .tmp files are not getting deleted.
I opened a support case on your behalf, so our Support Engineers can do a deep-dive on your setup. They're rockstars at identifying the cause of such issues, and I'll follow along so I can share any valuable updates information here. Thanks again for reaching out, and keep your eyes out for an email from support@articulate.com!
Thank You So Much
This was just happening to me using the latest version of Storyline 3, and I am on the latest update . Our IT Staff used a program called TreeSizeFree (portable version, free shareware).
I went from having less than 2gb free to having over 60 gb available.
I'd be happy with a utility that would go in and clean these out within the Storyline application at this point.
I'll email support and let them know as well.
Michael McFarland
I saw a note above that " this was fixed in Update 4 of Storyline".
Whatever the fix was, it appears to be gone. I am working with very large Storyline files (often over 1Gb) on Windows 10, and I need to regularly go to the cache folder to delete the tmp files so that I don't run out of disk space.
Another disk space issue with Storyline: When starting a new session of storyline, it forces download of older storyline files from OneDrive, even so I am not attempting to open these older files and I have marked them as "Free up space" in OneDrive. (and Storyline is using large network bandwidth in doing so, since these older files are over 1Gb).
I have the latest version of Storyline 3 (3.6.18134.0) and Windows 10 1809.
Articulate should do a better job cleaning up after themselves, and should not force downloading of unnecessary files.
I see the force download as well in Dropbox I think it is the preview images for recently opened files that storyline is opening the file to get the image.
Sent from my iPhone
The preview image on the recent file list has very little value and big impact for files that are stored on the cloud. Other applications, like Adobe, do not attempt to download files if they are not on the local drive. Why cannot articulate to the same?
Just an observation. I think it should be something saved into the preferences. As Dropbox can freeze the VM when it happens.
Sent from my iPhone
That is for Storyline 360. I actually have to clear out my API cache all the time. Usually gives 1-1.5 GB of precious HD space on my computer. I literally could do it everyday I work in Storyline, and sometimes I have to. :(
I delete the V1 folder under that tree. I am on version 3.18.16449.0.
Hi Alicia,
Thanks for reaching out and letting us know what you are running into.
It looks like you are a few versions behind our current version. We are currently on Build 3.28.18944.0 of Storyline 360. You can read all of the details here.
Curious if updating to the latest version performs better for you.
Well, this is still an issue with the latest version of Storyline 360... Just found out about this and I was able to remove 180 GB of temp files. The files were dated from 2017 to today...
Hi Sebastian,
Thanks for reaching out!
Some temp files are kept as part of the auto-recovery process, but if you see these and Storyline has not crashed, I'd love to have you work with our Support team to help figure out what's happening with your setup.
If you do reach out, let me know, and I'll follow along in your case, too, and update the forum discussion!
I have spent several weeks trying to figure out why my 260GB C drive was grinding to a halt whilst actively building Storyline courses... I have all SL files and all other system data loaded onto my D drive (1TB), but because Articulate software has to be installed on the C drive, this is where is loads all temporary files when the programme crashes.
Storyline crashes regularly, probably every 15 to 20 minutes, it only happens on my new top-end laptop, as I think the Articulate software is a little old now! I found that if I regularly exit and save the application every 15 minutes or so (and regularly save in between), then I don't get caught out.
However, it does catch me out now and again and over 6 months or so I found (through a local computer firm called Alcom who ran diagnostics) that over 160Gb of temporary files were on my C drive... hence the slow decline of my system performance and only a few Mbs left on my C drive.
Have removed all temporary files and hey ho... system now okay.
Storyline is a great product, but you guys really need to invest in bringing the architecture/software it into the 21 Century!
Totally agree!!!!!!!!!!
My hard drive was running out of space and I finally discovered Storyline temp folder with 200Gb of temp files...
My Storyline 360 crashes also very often, copying a trigger, moving objects, whatever you do is a potential risk of crashing Storyline and loosing a lot of work.
I can't beleive these guys from Articulate didn't solve this issue 6 (SIX) years after the first report... And this happens with many other things... Storyline is full of bugs and nobody fixes them...
I found 96GB of Storyline temp files from 2017 till today...
I figured out why my C drive(256GB) is always such full and why I have to clean up the drive such often.
I spend lots of time for this issue these years to delete data, move software to other drives, etc. also retried storyline edit because of saving errors.
Please create options to set the storage period or amount of temporary files.
or, I want you to be able to move it to other drives.
Yep, definitely not fixed. I'm now removing 43GB worth of Temp files. I'm on the current version of Storyline (that's the only Articulate proggy I use).
Dates range from Nov 2020 to end of March 22. I save all my projects directly into a folder on the Mac side so perhaps Windows/Storyline is seeing that as an external volume and is doing the backups because of that. But, I'm not going to change how I work just for this.
I think I'll put a shortcut to this folder on the desktop and periodically go there for a cleanout.
Thanks for this article. I'm using Storyline 360, path was slightly different but i still found it and just deleted 29 GB of temp files!
Hello,
I have the same problem, C:\Users\MyName\AppData\Local\Articulate\360\ApiCache\v1 is over 3Gb.
Why don't you delete automatically these files ?
One of the folder has elements from 2022 !
I checked mine the other day and I had over 20 GB <shockface>. I second the automatic deletion function.
Perhaps when the app launches it can scan this folder and delete anything older than a certain timeframe (x number of weeks).
BTW, I've put a shortcut to this folder on my desktop so I can easily/quickly check it (when i remember... obviously it'd been a while since I last did it).