Is there a simple way to clean out all the unused audio files in a project audio folder? One of my projects is taking up over 7 gigabytes of disk space and part of the reason is that there are many files which are no longer used. It would be rather tedious to try to go through the folder to figure out which files can be deleted. Besides, I don’t think Cubase would like that.
Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.
audiogram
You can use the Back up Project in the file menu for that.
My thought…
The Back up Project function will create a new project folder with audio files related to the project. But, it does not clean out the original pool which is what I think you want to do (to recover some drive space). So, my questions would be… Why do you have such a large project pool? Does it contain a lot of audio files from one big project or does it contain a lot of files from several individual projects?
If it is one large project then, after doing the suggested Backup Project function and ensuring the project is working correctly from that backup, you need to go into the original project pool and right click on the audio files folder and choose “remove unused media”/“send to trash”. Then make sure the project is working properly before right clicking on the trash folder to actually delete those files. Be aware that the files are deleted when doing this. They are not sent to the op system recycle bin for further recover consideration.
If that pool contains files from several different projects then you need to open each associated project and do the Backup Project function on each project before going into the one big project pool to delete files as previously mentioned.
Bottom line…
Be careful and always make sure to ensure projects work correctly before trashing anything from that original large project pool. You can easily delete files by mistake when a pool contain files from several projects, or contain files that are shared between projects.
Regards 
Thanks for your suggestions. It is a single project: The first act of an opera I am writing. It runs about 25 minutes so there are a lot of large audio files. If I lost all of them, it would not be a disaster because they are copies from other locations where other software has generated them. The problem occurs when I need to make changes to one of the files. When I re-import the new file, the old one remains in the pool.
I’ll try the “remove unused media” after a backup… Thanks.
Regards
audiogram
The Backup function is NOTHING like the Clean Up function from earlier versions of Cubase…
… and it is a big miss to throw out the CLEAN UP function (from the File Menu) IMHO…
Hint: It still works from an earlier version of Cubase (and that’s why I still have Cubase 9 installed).
How about:
Media>Open Pool Window
Expand the audio folder
Right click any file in the audio folder
Select: “Remove Unused Media” from the menu that comes up
You get an option to Trash, Remove from Pool, or Cancel
Select Trash (moves unused files to the trash folder) and make sure the project still works (close/reopen) for insurance
Then you can expand the trash folder (Media>Open Pool Window) right click and choose to “Empty Trash”
Oh, I see Prock has answered this already. My apologies I should have read the whole post 
The files will still fill your HD/Audio Folder… If you select Erase on the other hand, it will be deleted form your hard drive… And that can be MAJOR problem if you are in the habit of saving multiple versions of your project (within the same project folder). If you choose to Erase (from disk) from within one version of your project, it will be lost for all other versions of the project.
My workflow is:
Empty Trash > selecting Remove from Pool (NOT Erase from hard disk) > Then close all open projects. But keep Cubase open (until C9.0 that is).
Then choose Clean Up from the File Menu > browse to and scan the wanted hard drive or folder/folders > the Clean Up function will then find all files NOT referenced in ANY Cubase projects > Then I can safely delete all those files in one fell swoop…
… Without the Clean Up function you have to hunt down all those unreferenced files manually… A real pain if you save many versions within each project (espesially from different tracking stages).
For now I keep my C8.5 and C9.0 installed… for the Clean Up function alone…
… The big question is: Will the Clean Up function return?
PS. You can of corse use the Backup function. Then remove/delete your project from your audio disk, and copy over the backup version (in which you opted for Remove unused files - which may or may not be needed in another version of your project). A pain in the xxx, if you don’t stick to one version only for your projects (from project start to finish).
I can’t see any reason what so ever to remove the Clean Up function. Which have worked well for many many years.