Deleting files

[terryl86326180]

When my magazine or book is completed and I will no longer be making any changes can I delete all the folders of images and docs for my book?  I move things on my computer frequently so I typically copy everything and put images in folders just for the books, so it takes up a lot of space on my hard drive.  

Thanks

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

It can be a bad idea to ever delete working files for projects of any significance.

Buy a USB drive and archive old work to it. Even better, in some ways: find an older optical drive and burn archive work off to DVD-Rs.

Deleting is forever, and you might regret it when the only gain was 100MB of main drive storage.

That said, some weeding of project files is always in order. You just need what would let you reconstruct the project. Not ever test or print PDF or other "temporary" file, and it's often those that really bulk out a folder.

[Scott Falkner]

Package the file and store it on an external drive or removable media (like DVS as James Gifford suggests). You might never want those files, but if you do you will either be glad you kept them or furious with yourself for delting them.

The way I make A or B choices is I ask, “What’s the worst case scenario if I pick wrong?” If I choose to keep the files and I picked wrong then I spent a few minutes and a few pennies keeping files I didn’t need. If I choose to delete the files and I picked wrong then I have to spend hours recreating the files or maybe I lose a client. Not a hard choice.

[barbara_a]

If you will never need to make a change to the book files or to use any of the files in the future, go ahead and delete. But as mentioned by others, you may regret it. 

Storage is inexpensive nowadays. You can also purchase cloud backup services.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Storage is inexpensive nowadays. You can also purchase cloud backup services.

Eeeee. You can rent cloud storage etc. And like storage units, if you miss a payment, it all goes away. For the kind of "someday, maybe" storage we're mostly talking about, hard media you can throw in a drawer might be better.

And a decent 2TB USB drive costs far less than a year of paid cloud storage.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Like others said - backup is cheap. 

One day it can pay for itself few times over - when long forgotten client will come back to you... 

[Peter Spier]

I'm with everyone else. I'm hasnging onto archived projects that I haven't looked at in 20 years, but you never know if something in there may be useful.

Really old stuff from clients I don't work with any longer is on old backup drives, but anyone I've been working with over the last five years or so has a full folder of projects on my hard drive.

[Randy Hagan · Accepted solution]

Like others here, I find I'm more of an archive guy. I got that way by ruing each time I needed something from a previous job just after I threw it all away.

After the job is done, I package the final approved version of the InDesign document(s) with all linked files. In addition, I move all copy/text documents I used for creating the document(s) into the resulting packaged folder. That way I have all the elements used to recreate and reproduce, if necessary, the final product.

During production I save each version of the InDesign file and associated PDFs submitted for review, ideally with any revisions/changes requested by the client. Once the job is over, I move the PDFs submitted for approval and any files documenting client reviews. For the big jobs, I even take all the emails and create a PDF containing all the correspondence and attachments. The InDesign files get tossed.

So in short, I'm saving:

• Final InDesign packaged folder with last approved version of the .indd file, all source/placed files, in a folder named and dated for the client and the job.

Inside that folder, I'm adding:

• All the text files submitted for the job.
• PDFs submitted for review/changes/revisions/corrections, with all files submitted for review.
• PDF generated of all client correspondence associated with the job with attachments.

Then I'm saving those packages offline on external SSD drive(s) in a sneakernet RAID format to two external drives. If you shop carefully, you can buy two 1TB 2.5" format SSDs and snap-on external USB drive cases for $100-$125US. Copy the files off to the SSDs, then feel free to delete everything associated with the job off the hard drive. Especially the emails. It's a lot easier to navigate your email if you can blow away dozens or hundreds of emails between your client when you're done with each job.

This keeps the computer clean and saves you from the next time you discover you need something you just threw away.

Hope this helps,

Randy