We see them every weekend. Garage sales; yard sales, even flea markets and swap meets. What are they doing? Out with the old and in with the new. How refreshing to finally get rid of those old clothes, nik-naks, and assorted kitchen gadgets.

Plan to have a Windows Garage Sale yourself on a regular basis. Only in this case, it’s those nasty, extraneous temporary files. Temp files for short.

Windows uses temporary files to help you do two or more things at once. You can surf the Internet while at the same time play solitaire. Your children can also be working on their homework projects, while you interrupt to check your personal calendar for next weeks PTA meeting. Finally, you e-mail your brother across the country to review plans for next years family reunion. All of this is happening one on computer in one home over the course of a five-minute period.

While it looks like black magic, it is really not. Its a combination of memory management and a system of temporary files. Most every program you run uses some temporary files. Under normal circumstances, these temporary files disappear and are deleted when you exit the program. Each program handles temporary files in a different way.

Sometimes these temporary files remain

At first glance, you cannot see them, but they are there. They tend to congregate in colonies like ants surrounding an open can of food in the pantry. . Like a house guest that refuses to leave, these temporary files clutter up your computer and are a nuisance. Over time, you’ve got more than you can handle. Overload your temporary files and you will soon run out of space for more important stuff. Like the latest computer game, more picture images of your in-laws new baby, or just a simple homework report in your word processor that is due tomorrow.

Have a yard sale for your temp files

Save your work and restart your computer

Leaving only your desktop active.

• Click Start

• Find Files or Folders

• Type *.tmp in the named box

• Make sure the look-in box points to C or all hard drives, but not my documents or any other folder

• Check on include subfolders

• Click find now

Before deleting any of these files, make sure the files that are listed are truly temp files. Go to your list of files and look at the Name column. Make sure that the last three letters after the dot have the extension .tmp or .TMP. Do not delete any files that do not end in these three letters.

If you are like most users, you will see quite a number of files listed. The bottom of the find files windows should indicate how many of the tmp files you have. If you have less than a hundred:

• Click on Edit

• Select All

• Hit Delete to delete the files

If you have more than a hundred, you should probably delete these files in small groups.

• Click on the first file in the list

• Move down the list say 50 to 75 files

• Hold down the shift key and click on the last file in the group

• Click file
• Delete to delete these files
• Repeat the process until all files are deleted

There could be other temporary files still hanging around waiting for your delete key.

• Click Start
• Find Files or Folders
• Type *.~mp in the named box
• Make sure the look-in box points to C only, not my documents or any other folder
• Check on include subfolders
• Click find now

The ~ key is called a tilde and is usually located as the upper case symbol with the apostrophe key. Different keyboards will have it in different locations but look around; most every keyboard has one.

Just like the temp files above, remember..before deleting any of these files, make sure the files that are listed are truly temp files. Go to your list of files and look at the Name column. Make sure that the last three letters after the dot have the extension .~mp or .~MP. Do not delete any files that do not end in these three letters.

Repeat the procedures above to highlight and delete all files of this type.

You can also also delete files by clicking on any file name and hitting the delete key on your keyboard.

Incidentally, the tmp or ~mp following the period in your file name is called the file extension. Most files have a 3 character extension. The file extension is a powerful tool in managing files .

File extensions and file types are discussed in Types of Files

After deleting all of these nasty temp files, restart your computer.

Make sure your Windows starts without any new error messages. If you receive any error messages or warnings, you may have deleted a file that should not have been deleted. Review the error messages to determine if any of the files should not have been deleted.

Restore these files from the recycle bin

Restart your computer again

Once all error messages have been resolved empty your recycle bin

Don't forget about clearing: 

Temporary Folders within your Windows Temp Directory