all voicememos are stored twice on macos monterey - which set can I delete?

Noodnik wrote:

I have about 10GB of VoiceMemos and I want to keep them like that. However, on my Mac there are two copies of each inside ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.voicememos/Recordings/, consuming double the disk space. One copy of each is an m4a file in the root directory of the Recordings folder, and the second is a file with no extension inside a hidden folder at a relative location of /.CloudRecordings_SUPPORT/_FBF. My question is, which of these can I delete? And what do I lose by not having both copies.

I'm running latest Monterey on current hardware.

Below photo shows the directory. Thanks.

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/b21db2b2-7218-4e2d-986f-d12bf9464f47

Hidden files are hidden for a reason— I would not delete either.

If you are in doubt— then add a test file. or choose a file an delete it. Go from there.

To be honest I do not see duplicates in your screen shot.

Between iCloud/iCloud Drive/iPhone backups/ and local files you may gain some insight in your experiment above.

While Voice Memo files are saved to iCloud, sync between devices, access them on any device signed in to your Apple ID and using the Voice Memos app.

Make a recording in Voice Memos on iPhone - Apple Support

Create a recording on Mac - Apple Support

Voice Memos User Guide for Mac - Apple Support

if you have storage issue—I would look somewhere else to do general house cleaning.

I have the same problem. I can confirm that there are two folders (one visible, one hidden) with identical copies of my voice memos, taking up double the space on my hard drive. I'm not sure how that could possibly be to my benefit, given that there's no need for two local duplicates for any other cloud-based files. This only happens for voice memos.

I just created a test memo, tried deleting one, and then the other, and when I opened up the Voice Memos app, it then downloaded both of them from the cloud again. Here's some screenshots of the "Recordings" folder and hidden ".CloudRecordings_SUPPORT" folder both containing the exact same files, but only one in mp4 format.