Forum Discussion
Manually delete old .tmp files from hidden folder to free up disk space!
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!
Thanks Lee - I'll take a look.
I found myself searching the internet and this forum for a solution to the amount of hard disk memory Storyline 2 uses and determine which (if any) temp files can be deleted - or if I could move SL2 temp file storage from my SSD (very small solid state C: drive used for system files) to my HDD (D: drive) that has 1 TB of space.
When I saw this article, I thought "that's not where I'm seeing all these temp files" - I have a boatload of what looks like temp folders in %User%/App Data/Local/Temp/Articulate/Storyline - where today I see 57 folders, each with 100's of MBs of data from a project I worked on yesterday - after I did a disk cleanup and rebooted my computer.
SL2 is overruning my SSD and I can't seem to redirect where temp files are stored. HELP!
Can I delete these files?
Can I redirect where SL2 stores temp files (away from my SSD C: drive)?
>> Addendum: After I opened SL2 to work on the same project today, the contents of this folder changed significantly: 2GB of data and 54 folders were deleted. Clearly this is a cache folder. So, my questions are reduced to one: Can I redirect where SL2 stores these temp files to my HDD D: drive?
try DuplicateFilesDeleter program
Hi Diane,
We don't recommend storing your working files or the temp folders and files on a non local drive (like your C drive) as that can lead to issues with file latency and ultimately corruption. The temp files are created in the event of a Storyline crash when you've enabled the auto recovery mode but they are safe for you to delete if you are no longer working on that project or if they're clogging things up.
By "non local drive" do you mean an external drive? I agree. I certainly wouldn't want to do that.
However, my development computer has two local drives: one is a solid state drive (SSD) with a maximum capacity of 120 GB that is use for my operating systems (and unfortunately Office, since Microsoft won't allow installation on anything but C:/), and a hard drive drive (HDD) with 500GB of storage capacity that I use as often as possible for installing programs, caching, temp files, and all my production files.
Both the SSD and HDD are local drives. However Storyline 2 is only using the SSD for its temp files. Can I make SL2 point to the HDD instead (since it's a local drive)?
Hi Diana,
An external drive, a networked drive, etc.
I don't believe we have a documented way to change the temp directory, but I know we have steps to change the install directory as detailed here. Could you try that and see how it impacts the temp file storage?
Hi Jim,
I'm sorry this is still causing you issues while using Storyline - do you see an error message, or just a slow down of the Storyline program?
No slowdown or issues. It just continues to do it until my boot drive is completely full, which is what causes errors and issues.
Hi Jim,
In the instances that we saw, it was triggering an error message as noted here. Since you're still running into the issue, can you share a bit more about where you're saving your standard .story files, if you changed anything about the install location, or other info about how you work?
Also, if you'd like to connect with our Support team, they can take a look at more specifics around your system settings too!
I don't believe we're talking about the same issue. The files that are filling my drive are in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Articulate\Storyline directory. There is a .tmp file for every single Storyline file that I have opened that is the same size as the .story file.
The issue that you're pointing to is apparently different, with files (such as preview files, etc) being placed in the %temp% directory.
My issue is the same as the users above. The one you have linked to is a different issue.
Hi Jim,
Storyline should have automatically deleted those temp files on your drive when you manually saved the project and close Storyline. Our team has looked into similar issues in the past, and would be happy to work with you too as it's typically caused by environmental factors.
If you encounter similar behavior in the future, I'd start by running a quick installation repair of Storyline to ensure that all of its software components are intact. Please refer to the instructions on this article.
Then, reboot your machine and see how it behaves. If the issue still persists, please reach out to our Support Engineers here, and they'll look for those additional factors that could affect the temp files from being deleted. They'll walk you through how to collect some logs and run a series of test.
Let me know if you need anything else.
