Temporary File Deletion

[Mike or Penny Novack]

>Is it safe to delete the many temporary files that gnucash generates every time I open it?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Keith
>
>  
>
Something you do CAREFULLY.

What you need to remember is that you can't go back to a state before 
your oldest pair of backups. So what you could/should do is relate this 
to your other backup procedures. Since all computer users SHOULD be 
making periodic backups of their data I will assume that to be the case. 
It's not a matter if IF your computer fails and eats your data but WHEN 
(so I simply won't advise for the situation of "no backup procedures").

Let me explain how I do it. In my case we do a full "user data backup" 
every month. So the directory (file folder) which contains GnuCash data 
would have been backed up along with everything else. Thus it is 
perfectly safe for me to delete all the backup pairs that are over a 
month old -- though if that included the latest*, I would leave that 
pair of files. If I did need to go back, could always get the backup 
disk out of the fire safe** and restore the directory to some prior state.

Michael



* The organization has a rather low volume of transactions, especially 
during certain parts of the year, so conceivable I haven't bothered 
entering the last few yet, waiting for a batch to build up so I'm not 
just entering one (say the interest on our savings account, the only 
transaction guaranteed to exist for a month).

** PS -- we had a house fire last year (2006) that melted backups. 
Learned the lesson. Just having them on a shelf near the computer is NOT 
adequate.