C12 issue: Remove unused media & empty Trash does not delete everything 100%

Hey there,
I am about to archive old projects and put them on a cloud drive.
In order to not use unnecessary disk space, I first remove the unused media and then empty the Trash and hit “delete”.
In that case all audio files, which are not used in the project should be deleted out of the audio folder as well, right?

Unfortunately that does not work 100%, as after doing that, there are still some audio files there, even if they are not present in the project anymore.
I had a project, which was 26 GB big and I already removed all unused media and also deleted everything in the Trash . So I thought, how could that be?
I then created a backup of that project and also used the option “remove unused media” when doing that. The resulting Project was 5GB big. So 21 GB of unused files, which I was not able to remove? What?

I then did a backup of the new project, to test further with that one, which was 5GB big and deleted everything in there. Not a single audio event left. Then I removed again all the unused media and emptied the Trash in the audio Pool.
Guess what?

There were still some audio files left in the audio folder and the project folder was 613 MB big, even with no audio events in the project.
After doing another backup of the 613MB project with the option “remove unused media”, all audio files were finally gone.

And even if there aren’t any files in the project, this message appears:


Steps to reproduce:

  • make a normal backup of one of your bigger projects
  • Remove every event in that project
  • Use “remove unused media” in the pool so it puts them in the Trash
  • Use "empty Trash " in the pool so it deletes them completely
  • Close project and look in to the audio folder
  • Are there still audio files in there?
  • Do another backup of the project with the deleted events with “remove unused media” active
  • Now all audio files are gone, but why not before?

I can reproduce that. What I’ve noticed is that there are also a lot of files left in the “Edits” subfolder, and those have at partially the same names as those left in the audio folder, so my guess is that is something to do with that.
I also got the “Some files are referenced by clips that are still in the pool” message, but there is nothing left in the pool.

If I do the initial backup with the options “minimize audio” and “make DOP permanent” and then repeat the procedure, there are now significantly less files left in the audio end edits subfolders.

Don’t know what to make of that, tbh.
Anyway, seem like doing a backup with deleting unused media is the better way for your archiving tasks. Isn’t it quicker to do that anyway?

Thanks for reproducing!
Yes I am doing backups for archiving anyway, this is something I noticed while doing that.
I have several big songwriting projects for different bands, which are used to store ideas on the go and which are never “done”. They also change a lot, so old ideas get deleted and new ones come in every day, so having to do a backup all the time is just not how it should work.

I just expect some basic procedures to work, if they are available.

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