dealing with Protools sound files

[oreo1]

I am trying to consolidate several large pro tools sessions, to eventually archive them onto a firewire disk. I am going through each session, selecting all the files on each track, then choosing edit>consoldidate selection. For example, at the end of the process, a 6 track song will show just 6 files in the audio window.

But when I save the session, and actually take a look inside the audio folder, it shows many many more sound files then i just consolidated. Not only can't I see these files in the audio window, but if I choose them all in the Finder, then trash them, (leaving my six files alone), the next time i open the session I get the search window asking me if it wants to locate these files.

So obviously, i am doing something wrong. How do i tell Protools:

1. I don't need these files anymore.

2. To properly manage the process of deleting all these unused files that can't be seen in the audio window. I have not yet found a way to access them from the audio window menu.

3. That I don't want it to do a search, so please stop showing me this window every time I re-load the session. I mean how do I turn off the search window?

interspecies.com

[Slim Shady]

You need to do your file mangement from within PT, deleting them using the finder will always cause that 'seach' window to pop up since the session thinks there are files there that no longer exist.

Once you've consolidated the tracks, go to the audio bin (small bin area on the right side of the edit window) and select Unused Regions including whole files - it will highlight all the unused files and regions in the audio bin. Next select "delete selected files" (command-option-B) - you will get a dialog asking you to confirm each deletion - once finished, you should only have those 6 files in your audio bin - save your session and you're all set. If you get tired of confirming each file deletion, you can hold down 'option' while you confirm one of them, it will then skip asking you for the rest of the files.

[oreo1]

I do that all the time. I guess i didn't make that clear. That is how i always operate. Unfortunately, it doesn't do what you say it does, at least on my system. It still leaves lots of files in the audio folder. And that is the precise reason for my posting, because once I've done that, the only effective way to get rid of all the many files that your process does not eliminate, is to go into the finder and delete them manually.

And what about my other question. Once I do delete them, the search box comes onscreen. I simply can not figure out a way to tell Search to forget those files because i deleted them myself.

anyway, am i the only one out there who has this problem?

[sonikbliss]

I'm 99% sure that the problem you're having is because Display Auto-Created Regions (under the Display Menu ) is not on. What's happening is there are regions hidden that are not getting selected when you do Select Unused Regions & Clear Selected , so instead of actually deleteing the whole files it just removes them from the session because regions that are hidden in the session are referencing them. If you hold down option while you are doing Clear Selected though, you will never see the message saying that files cannot be deleted because it automatically removes them all. Hope this saves you from the aggravation that Display Auto-Created Regions put me through.