Is It Safe To Delete Temp Files?

Chris Pirillo — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 17:53:49 +0000

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http://live.pirillo.com/ – When you load a program, the operating system puts it into memory, which creates files in your temp folder. You’ll also find data about your recycle bin there, as well as any plugins you may have installed. It is quite safe to delete these files, and there are a couple way to easily do so.

Temporary files are created when a program on your computer is performing an action. If the program closes cleanly, the temp files should be deleted automatically. However, if you end a task, or the program crashes, those files are left behind. There is also data stored in your temp files pertaining to what is in your recycle bin. Even though the files in the recycle bin have been deleted and aren’t running, they are still actually on your system. Emptying that recycle bin is one way to free up some space in your temporary files folder.

One good way to free up disk space and clean your temporary files is to run the Disk Cleanup utility on your Windows computer. You can access this in one of three ways:

Click Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Cleanup
Click Start | Run and in the Open box type cleanmgr and click OK
Go to My Computer, right-click the disk in which you want to free up space, click Properties, click the General tab, and then click Disk Cleanup.

There is an excellent free program that was created by one of the friends of our live broadcast and chat room. ATF Cleaner is free, as I mentioned. It doesn’t have to be installed, so it takes up no space on your computer. You can use this to clean and/or manage not only your temp files, but your cookies, cache, and saved passwords. Check out the complete guide for how to use ATF Cleaner.

You could also choose to use CCleaner. This is a free program as well, and very powerful. It has a registry cleaner built in, in addition to the other cleaners. I caution you to always back up your registry first, prior to doing any cleaning of it, or making any changes.

Before we signed off on this video, we tried something new. Most of you know that GoDaddy.com is now our video sponsor. We are going to try and do a poll for every video, to include the results, thanks to GoDaddy. Today’s poll was asking our live chatters if they feel it is safe to delete temp files. Nearly 90% of them agreed that it is. So there you go, Kyle. Thanks for the question!

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Is It Safe To Delete Temp Files?

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Is It Safe To Delete Temp Files?