Trying To Keep Audio Folder Clean

Kalle Rantaaho
That's why IMO the fastest and safest (very likely more safe than any cleaning command in any DAW) way to get rid of unnecessary audio is to Save As under a new name and selecting "Copy all audio". Then just delete the original.

There's no reason this should be safer than any cleaning command; the DAW has exactly the same information available in each case.
 
Really, all it needs to do is almost the inverse of the Save As command: collate a list of all the referenced audio files, just as it would if it was going to perform a Save As, but instead of saving those files, delete any audio files in the project directory that are not found on that list.
 
I would really like for them to fix this.

Kylotan

Kalle Rantaaho
That's why IMO the fastest and safest (very likely more safe than any cleaning command in any DAW) way to get rid of unnecessary audio is to Save As under a new name and selecting "Copy all audio". Then just delete the original.

There's no reason this should be safer than any cleaning command; the DAW has exactly the same information available in each case.
 
Really, all it needs to do is almost the inverse of the Save As command: collate a list of all the referenced audio files, just as it would if it was going to perform a Save As, but instead of saving those files, delete any audio files in the project directory that are not found on that list.
 
I would really like for them to fix this.

Another approach that would work for me would be to "archive" unused audio files into folders that can then be deleted by the user at their whim - once they're comfortable that the files are in fact unused.
 
I had mentioned once how it would nice to have xml project files, or least the details on their structure.  With this info, any one of a very large number of talented folks could whip out (a) handy file management tool(s). 
 
In other words, make things such that the user community can solve problems at the periphery, allowing the Bakers to focus on soufflé
 
 
 

Yes, CWAF is/has been my tool of choice for this chore.

As far as naming of audio files within Sonar. when you set up a project name the various tracks before recording audio or midi into them. This gives you control over the base name before Sonar appends information to them.

The Save As technique is impractical if you haven't been doing it all along. I have close to 100 projects on my audio drive and never thought to do that as I went along.  I really wish the Clean Audio worked but it's way to risky. This was brought up a few months ago in a thread.
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Platinum-Clean-Audio-Folder-problem-or-not-m3163441.aspx#3163593.  Keith Albright said they would look into it. I very much hope they do as I would love a SAFE way to clean all the bits of audio junk.

I'll agree that a better system of managing files would be a popular feature addition. 
Because new hard drives are so large it's not an issue for me. I stopped worrying about my computers storage when 500 Gig drives came out.  This might be more of an issue for folks who are always starting new projects and not finishing old ones.  
I work album to album and those albums sometimes take a year, but they do get finished and then archived to Data drives. I use the "save as" for the final archive version and they take up very little room after that. I would use this new improved clean up feature if it existed and then just drag and drop the folder, would be faster. 
 
A little tip to help keep unwanted junk out of the audio folder. I find that if you don't delete a bad take, that Sonar stores it forever. It becomes a hidden layer I guess just in case you want to go back. I never do. I want it gone... I think this is another bad habit people get into.. take hoarding.  
 
So when I'm recording my self or a band and make false starts or finish a take and don't like that one I actually delete the track(s). If you  use record "overwrite" the original is still going to be in the audio folder. So deleting bad takes will keep only the good ones in the audio folder. 
I know it takes a few seconds to delete a track but possibly this is the ultimate solution to messy audio folders. 
 

Looks like someone in another thread dropped their subscription because, at least in part, of this:
 
"The whole experience of Platinum installing numerous 32 Bit Plugins on my 64 Bit PC plus piles of unwanted DXi's did not float my boat. Added to the complete inability to clean projects of unwanted audio files without a search of entire system just added to the pain."
 
They really should bring it up to date. It doesn't seem like it would be a very big deal to redo it.
 
It would work for me if the CWAF tool allowed me to choose the directory I wanted to scan, or the browser flagged the files that were in use in the project, and allowed me to simply delete the ones that weren't.

I'd have to double-check, but I don't think Comp recording is any different. Possibly the difference you're seeing is more about Loop recording. When you loop record, only a single file is created with the "takes" referencing different sections of the file. So if you save the project with even one of the takes from that recording pass still present, the file is still referenced. And/or maybe it happens because you miss one of the "leftovers" created by the auto-split that happens with the last partial take when you're deleting.