hard drive - What are the consequences of deleting AppData\Local\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Recovery?
2014-07
Kate Gregory
My laptop is starved for space and at times something goes crazy and eats it all. Today I was down to 3 MB (yes, meg) on C at one point. I keep no working files on C, they are all on D. I can't adjust the partitioning and I intend to replace the machine soon, but as you probably know when you get down to that little space, you can't use the machine. I was busy saving things and closing things and dismissing "you are very low on disk space" dialogs and passing Skype some smelling salts because it decided the smart thing to do was sign me out due to a disk i/o problem (wat?) and then weirdly 4 gig came back (I was running Disk Cleanup, but not expecting that), which was a relief, but now I'm down to 2.5 gig already.
So, sorry for all that background but it's to give context to this question. Under AppData\Local\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Recovery there is 1.5 gig consumed whose purpose in life seems to be to allow me to reopen closed tabs. Every single tab that is open right now, or that I might ever want to reopen, is a favourite or I saved the URL to a text file or I have a link in a folder or whatever. So, can I just delete this whole folder? Or some subfolders under it, or their contents? I need my 1.5 gig back and I need to limp through the next few weeks until I replace the machine.
Typically - what you should see within this folder are 2 folders (active and lastactive). Within here, you will see dozens of files which have a .dat extension. These files are what internet explorer uses to store data in order to be able to "restore previous windows and tabs" in the event that internet explorer crashes - or when you have the browser configured to load your last browsing session on opening.
Deleting these folders will remove that functionality - so while you can delete them, there is an associated risk.
If you go into these folders and delete the .dat files, this will only harm you ability to restore the current session and you they should be auto-recreated (giving you a fresh start) when you launch another new session.
Hope this helps.
Phillip Ngan
Is there an easy way of deleting temporary files from internet explorer?
I'm doing silverlight development and when I run the .xap I often get the cached version of the files rather than the newly created one. In IE, I've set the internet option: Check for newer versions of stored pages: to Everytime I visit the web page. But, this does not seem to work every time.
Hirvox
The Internet Explorer Developer Tools has an option to always redownload from the server. Tools / Developer Tools / Cache / Always Refresh from Server.
outsideblasts
Which OS? The files are in your temp folder. Easy to find in Windows XP, trickier in Vista or W7.
Easiest way is probably to run ccleaner (assuming Windows). It can do a fairly thorough system clean up, but can be told to only clear up temp files.
Diablomarcus
While I would also recommend ccleaner, if you want to do it manually, the files are traditionally stored in (C:\Documents and Settings\username). There will be a temporary folder that is hidden in here (use "show all files and folders" button).
Source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070918144719AAd4KPY
zaperi
In IE any following instructions should be displayed on screen and easy to update window or another software.I always check for newer versions of stored pages and that will revert it back IE8
quack quixote
On XP, at least, you can also do this directly from the Internet Properties dialogue (Tools -> Internet Options, or the Internet Options control panel). The first tab has a "Delete Files..." button under the Temporary Internet Files section.