[daeron80]

There is a way to do it very quickly, but before I tell you how to do it, please be warned not to try it until you've read this whole post. Use the Select all unused files method outlined correctly from memory by 3over3 Then Ctl+Shift+B, which brings up a dialog where you can choose Remove, Delete, or Cancel. You are now standing on the edge of the point of no return, so don't acually do this yet, but if you were to hold down the Alt key while choosing the Delete option, all selected files would be deleted instantly - gone forever, no warning message, no second chance (unless you have Norton Unerase installed on that drive, which is huge waste of space if there ever was one).

Very, very dangerous thing to do unless you are absolutely certain that every single selected region is no longer needed at all by any session. A lot of things can go wrong. Most of the time, sessions end up using mostly regions that are not whole files. When you select all whole files, that includes any that have regions remaining in the session. Thankfully, recent versions of PT won't usually allow you to delete those accidentally, but they will allow you to remove them from the session, which may cause you problems later on, especially if you Compact.

In many kinds of projects, sessions share files. Deleting a file that is no longer used in one session may make it permanently unavailable to another that does use it. A simple music record project doesn't usually share files across sessions, but if you get in the habit of doing it and then end up with a post-scoring or other commercial project, you may screw yourself.

I tried for years to reduce backup size by deleting unused files, but I've pretty much given up on it. Between the amount of time it takes to make sure you're only deleting things you really don't need, and the risk involved in deleting things you THINK you don't need, not to mention the ever-present all-too-human oops factor, it ends up being a net cost rather than a benefit in the long run, IMO.

But sometimes, you do end up with a session filled with many useless whole files, and you know for certain that you can easily and confidently select them and delete them without further ado. Then the Alt-Delete method is a blessing.

BTW, backing up to DVD is one of the slowest and most irritating ways to do it. Look into AIT-2 and Retrospect software. It's expensive but it saves loads of time.