Hi,
I notice that my Auto Saves folders contain a lot of large files, some very large. I am particularly interested in whether the very large files generated when using Spectralayers in ARA mode can be deleted.
See the attached screen shot of one Auto Saves folder’s contents.
I would be very grateful if someone could fill me in here how these folders work.
All the best,
Magnus
Hi @Magnus_N ,
you can safely delete them if they are not needed anymore.
The number of bak files has something to do with the way you changed the project’s name over time. Steinberg’s manual is ‘what it is’ to put it that way and does not provide a lot of info.
Here’s a more comprehensive guide to Autosave in Cubase.
HTH
Thank you for confirming that this can be deleted. One thing, though: How do I know if these files are not needed anymore?
Best,
Magnus
Bak files provide safety backups of past project states. These bak files are independent from your current project state. In other words: They are not needed to run your current project if you don’t want to fall back to an earlier state.
If you want to delete bak files I would look at time stamps and also their names. Keep in mind that a new project name will initiate an additional and new series of bak files. If you can tell by the name that a bunch of bak files refer to an earlier version that you don’t want to go back to then you could as well delete them.
The only time they are ever needed is if you want to revert your Project back to whatever state it was in when the .bak file was created. In general this isn’t something folks normally want to do, so under normal circumstances they are never needed.
However there are situations where you do want revert to an earlier version of the Project. The most common reason is to recover after Cubase or you computer crashes. The other main use is to revert to a previous state after you’ve made a bunch of edits & changes that you want to get rid of. This use is fairly rare since undo in the Edit History can take care of most needs.
Deleting them will have zero impact on the Project itself. The only thing Deleting does is limit your ability to revert to an earlier version.
A .bak file is exactly the same as a .cpr file under a different name. Also the description in the .bak file names tells you what you were doing just before the backup was created - this can help sort out which one you want to restore, but that’s all. It doesn’t have anything to do with ARA or any other settings - it’s just descriptive.
Thank you both for excellent explanations. I will delete these files to free up space.
All the best,
Magnus
