Tag Simler
Level 1 (45 points)

Q: Tons of .tmp files in iTunes folder

I've been searching around and I see people have the same problem, but I couldn't find a single answer.  Every time I open iTunes or play a song, iTunes is creating a .tmp file in my iTunes folder that's 21 MB.  I had about 30 of them when I finally noticed the problem.  If I delete them, they only start to reappear when I open iTunes again.  I see people saying it's because it's having trouble writing to the xml or database file.  How do I fix this?

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jan 3, 2012 8:00 PM

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Tag Simler

Q: Tons of .tmp files in iTunes folder

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  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Jan 3, 2012 9:23 PM in response to Tag Simler
    Level 9 (54,649 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 3, 2012 9:23 PM in response to Tag Simler

    I had a problem maybe related to this.  I noticed in Spotlight that iTunes was creating many .tmp files, all invisible and almost 0kb.  I couldn't even reveal them so they were either not really there or it was something Finder could not handle.  I noticed, however, that they were not being created if I used iTunes in a different account.  In the end I made a new account for myself on this computer and transferred all my files to it.

  • by Chris CA,

    Chris CA Chris CA Jan 3, 2012 10:10 PM in response to Tag Simler
    Level 9 (79,692 points)
    iTunes
    Jan 3, 2012 10:10 PM in response to Tag Simler

    Quit iTunes and you can safely delete all .tmp files in the iTunes folder.

     

    iTunes continually updates the iTunes library.itl file and it uses a .tmp file, which should get automatically deleted, usually immediately, before you can even see it.

    However, on ocassion, something happens and the .tmp file(s) do not get deleted.

  • by Tag Simler,

    Tag Simler Tag Simler Jan 4, 2012 7:57 AM in response to Chris CA
    Level 1 (45 points)
    Jan 4, 2012 7:57 AM in response to Chris CA

    I did quit iTunes before deleting them, then reopened iTunes.  Even restarted my computer.  Still having the problem.

  • by Bob Grove,

    Bob Grove Bob Grove Mar 6, 2012 4:58 PM in response to Tag Simler
    Level 2 (200 points)
    Mar 6, 2012 4:58 PM in response to Tag Simler

    Tag Simler:  The .tmp files should only be that - tmp and under normal situations you should not have these files hanging around.  The cause could be an obscure one that a few of us had with larger libraries after upgrading to Lion - where it was also causing a permission problem when trying to open iTunes.  It also created tons of these tmp files.  Anyway, we found the solution by disabling the 'local snapshot' feature of Time Machine via the terminal command"

     

    sudo tmutil disablelocal

     

    You can find the orginal thread here which is summarized as to the cause and solution at toward the end: https://discussions.apple.com/message/17692965#17692965.

     

    So if you are running Lion you may want to give this a try,  Btw, it is no problem to delete these .tmp files. 

  • by LexSeymour,

    LexSeymour LexSeymour Jun 14, 2012 8:47 AM in response to Bob Grove
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 14, 2012 8:47 AM in response to Bob Grove

    Hi,

     

    I currently am not using TimeMachine, as only just got my MBA and currently building my iTunes library for the first time. Will be setting it up soon enough though...

     

    I'm still getting .tmp files more or less every time I play a track, but I can delete them. I didn't notice these until today and there were 450 of them weighing in at 10.83 MB / file.

     

    Do youhave any non Time Machine related recomendations that I could try?

     

    Seems like a Lion / iTunes bug that needs fixing?

     

    Thanks,

     

    Lex

  • by Chris CA,

    Chris CA Chris CA Jun 14, 2012 9:44 AM in response to LexSeymour
    Level 9 (79,692 points)
    iTunes
    Jun 14, 2012 9:44 AM in response to LexSeymour

    Quit iTunes and run Disk First Aid on the drive.

  • by LexSeymour,

    LexSeymour LexSeymour Jun 14, 2012 6:01 PM in response to Chris CA
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 14, 2012 6:01 PM in response to Chris CA

    Thanks Chris CA, that seems to have solved my problem. Don't think I formatted when I got it, so just backed it up, formatted and hasn't done it since. .tmp files dissapear now

     

    Thank-you

  • by Koos from Australia,

    Koos from Australia Koos from Australia Jul 5, 2012 7:52 PM in response to Chris CA
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 5, 2012 7:52 PM in response to Chris CA

    Thanks Chris. This worked and solved the problem