How do I delete temporary files left from a HP Scanner?

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Level 1

8 points

How do I delete temporary files left from a HP Scanner?

I am using a HP Photosmart C3180 to scan documents and even though I am scanning the documents to an external harddrive, the space on my Macbook Pro is decreasing rapidly. I am scanning on a high resolution so the documents are taking up a lot of space and my start up disk is getting full.

How do I delete the temporary files? Is there a way to set it up so they delete themselves automatically after each scan?

Help is much appreciated 🙂

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Mar 2, 2013 8:30 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

685,287 points

Mar 2, 2013 5:51 PM in response to smileynd

Have you tried using Spotlight to search your hard drive for what you named the file being scanned? If it can provide you with a location for a file, then you might know where to look.

When I use System Preferences/Print & Scan to open my HP printer Scan capability, the default folder comes up as the Pictures folder in my user folder. Try checking the Pictures folder to see if the temporary copies are there.

I can't select an external hard drive to scan to, but all my external drives are network drives.

Can you provide more information about how you are doing this through System Preferences and how your hard drive is attached to the computer? Screen shots might help (command - shift - 4).

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

685,287 points

Mar 2, 2013 11:43 AM in response to smileynd

Try checking your user documents folder/Scanner output to see if the files are there.

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Answer 3

smileynd Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 2, 2013 12:49 PM in response to Eric Root

I've looked in the Documents folder but there isn't a scanner output folder......

I have chosen to save the files to an external hardrive and am not using any software for the scanner, just the options in System Preferences.

I discovered that when I turn the scanner off, the temporary files disappear and my start up disk is restored to the previous capacity, however due to the fact that I am scanning a lot of documents, it's not practical to turn the scanner off and on in between each page.

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Answer 4

smileynd Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 3, 2013 4:18 AM in response to Eric Root

When scanning I follow this procedure;

System Preferences
Scan
Open Scanner
I then change Scan to 'other' (as pictured below)
It then gives me the option to select my external hard drive to scan to. My external hard drive is a portable USB hard drive.
I then start scanning and the files are saved to my external hard drive

There is no folder in my Pictures folder for the scanner and when I search in Spotlight for the file I have scanned, only one copy shows up & that is the one saved on my external hard drvie, so I can't find where the temporary files are being stored.

As mentioned in my earlier post, the temporary files are deleted as soon as I turn off the scanner but I don't want to have to do this in between pages.

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