1. Can You Delete Temporary Files

Nov 05, 2012  In most cases the answer is yes! But as with most things, this isn't allways the case. If you decide to manually delete the files I would suggest that you rewiev what type of files it is and then decide if you wan't to remove them. Personaly I just delete everything in the folder once every third month, and so far (ten years) nothing bad has happened. All this said, I have to add an important note: not all TMP files are safe to remove. So how do I know when a TMP file can be removed or not? Usually it is safe to assume that if a TMP file is several weeks or months old, you can delete.

In theory, AppData's Temp folder (%TEMP%) is the place for programs to put files that can be deleted immediately after all handles to them are closed. In practice, many programs - including Microsoft's own - violate that guidance. That's why some disk cleanup utilities (notably CCleaner) by default leave files that were last modified less than 24 hours ago. Taskbar not hiding in fullscreen mode. It's almost certainly safe to remove those, and unless you have particularly rickety third-party software, you can probably remove any that aren't in use.That said, however, I would advise against demolishing the actual Temp folder.

Can You Delete Temporary Files

It will get recreated periodically, but programs can rely on it being there. I've seen programs that attempt to create files under%TEMP%, expecting the call to always succeed.

(For example, attempting to echo stuff bogusFolderx.txt will fail if you don't have a folder called bogusFolder.) Therefore, it's best to leave well-known folders where they are.The same advice (for both the files and the folder) applies to the Temp folder under Windows, though that Temp folder is used only by the system or programs running as administrator. It tends to get full of log files, which can be deleted with wild abandon.