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!
Jim,
My problem with Storyline surrounding this issue has been that Storyline treats my virtual machine as a virtual drive. I see you are using roaming profiles on your windows machine. Storyline may see this is a virtual drive. When I escalated this issue previously with Storyline support a very helpful technician on the phone with me and said my virtual machine is creating a network drive, and Storyline does not support network drives, hence the software is working as designed. They closed the case and called it expected behavior. So technically Storyline works on a Mac, but not really. The temp file issue seems to be related to network drives, and if that is the issue I really wish Articulate would help us out here. Every Storyline project I work on results in a full hard drive and lots of problems.
My solution is I am using Rise a lot more, and still waiting on a supported Mac version of Storyline...
Hi Lee,
The majority of our Support team uses Storyline on a Mac environment, and to help with the issues of roaming profiles we all use the steps outlined here:
As for a native Mac version, I'm sorry to be the one to share the news, but there isn't a native Mac version of Storyline on our roadmap. The vast majority of our customers use Windows and web-based authoring tools that don’t depend on a particular operating system. And we're focused on developing features that have the widest impact. For example, as you mentioned Articulate 360 subscribers can use Rise to create courses right in their web browsers, and we’re continually updating Rise with new features.
We still have many customers (and staff) who use Storyline on Mac with a virtual environment. Take a look at these demo videos, which will show you how.
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.
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 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
