How to delete an audio file from media pool automatically?

Hello,

When I import an audio file into a project, it copies the audio file to project’s folder. That’s fine.

But when I delete the audio from the project, audio file stays in media pool. I have to go to media pool, find the audio file to delete it. Is there a way to delete the audio file also from media pool immediately when I delete it on project?

Thanks,
cnk

No, that’s to keep you from accidentally deleting the file when all you wanted to do is remove it from the project, perhaps only temporarily. Even if almost all the time you want to get rid of the file when you remove it from a project imagine how you’d feel that one time you accidentally trashed that perfect vocal it took all night to get right. :cry: “Oops I didn’t know that part was also selected when I hit the delete key.”

You can clean things up with Media/Remove Unused Media. Personally I never do that because disks are big & cheep and I’m never sure I won’t want something later.

But, and i could be wrong, but i thought there was an option, when importing an audio file, to NOT copy it to the working directory…?

Hello raino, thanks for your comment.

I see and agrre but maybe there is a key combination for this? I mean if you delete an audio file while pressing a key can be a big time saver.


Raino is right. What’s more important to you? A few seconds of your time or a lifetime of regret? Don’t cut corners and don’t find out the hard way :wink:

Simply ignoring that there are unused files in the pool, like I do, is a big time saver too. :smiley:

But even if you feel compelled to remove them from the pool don’t do it one file at a time, which could take up some time. Instead let them build up for awhile and then use the Remove Unused Media command to do it all at once. That’s only gonna take you a couple of seconds times once - so not really a big time sink.

Well, ok, when we are talking about the records that we made, you are right. But imagine that you are trying to find a loop for your piece and importing hundreds of loops to the project. Import, listen and delete, import, listen, delete etc…For situations like this I would like to use something like “immediate delete from pool option” :slight_smile: We may forget to to remove unused media at the end of each project.

That’s why I use the backup function when I’m finished, to move the project to a new location .
The original project I move to an external drive for safe keeping.

Wow, what does “backup function” do exactly??

It copies the project with all files to anew folder giving you the option of deleting unused files (and some more options). It does however not delete the original project - you have to do that yourself.

If the imported file is uncompressed, it will not be copied to the working directory if you uncheck “copy to working directory”. If a file is copied to the working directory and you close the project without having saved it since importing new files, it will ask you if you want to delete the newly imported files.

I’m not a big loop user, but isn’t there the capability to preview the loop in the context of the project before importing it into the Pool (not at my DAW to verify)?

Also a lot of folks aren’t aware you can create sub-folders in the Pool. You could import the hundreds of loops into a sub-folder and then whenever you found a keeper move that somewhere else. Once you are done delete everything left in the sub-folder all at once.

Actually, I’d quite like this feature too. Perhaps like the Shift-Delete key combo in Windows which bypasses the Recycle Bin and just deletes the file straight away. It does have a question box which you have to say Yes to, just to make it slightly safer. So, although Shift-Delete currently deletes Tracks, I could see a key combo which deletes the pool item straight away after a confirmation dialog. It could even optionally delete the audio file too…,

Mike.