I got so many .blend files in my C:/tmp folder....is it safe to delete some of them?

Question

I just discovered C:/tmp folder that blender creates...but i see many .blend files from other scenes i've worked/working on.

is it safe to delete some of these ? they take a lot of space.

Answer 1

Yes, you can remove it when your blend has been saved and your task is finish.

Blender use the path set in your preference page setting as below.

I point my temp dir to my Ramdisk(B:/) which automatic disappear after shut down computer power. I still can recover autosave from application crushed. And after shutdown as delete them, nothing is changing in my Blender.

But for safety and performance issue, I would recommend to save the Temporary file in non volatile memory or hard disk. And for Render Cache, a place you don't really care and use, since it might take out a lot of place and is regenerable.

Answer 2

Most files in temp folder are either autosaves, temporary backups, clipboard items (when using copy-paste through Ctrl + C > Ctrl + V) or expendable cache files.

Unless you recently lost any work and some file needs recovery, you worked on some unsaved projects, or Blender crashed or unexpectedly closed and you didn't save your work before, non of those files should be important, and can be safely removed without issues.

Blender doesn't normally store important files in unsafe locations, so unless you specifically told it to (either explicitly or by omission) files in temp locations should be unimportant and discardable.

Be sure that all your files are correctly saved in some "projects" folder in a safe spot in your hard drive. If in doubt use your system's safe deletion system (Recycle Bin for Windows) when deleting so that if something goes wrong you can restore it.