Hi,
I did some searches through the forum and documentation, but did not seem to find the answer to my question, so I am hoping there are some tips for me!
My problem is disk space/tropy taking up way too much storage through its cache on my laptop. Currently 130GB/256GB. I am bound to this laptop due to my research project, and therefore just have to make it happen somehow.
I have thousands of pictures of archival sources in my Advanced project and I’ve spent a lot of time and energy optimising my workflow in Tropy. I once made the disastrous mistake of emptying out my cache with a cleanmymac thing, which basically meant I had to start all over again.
Currently, my files/images are in a (backup) folder on OneDrive, which I then import into Tropy. Because all the pictures can’t just hang around on my desk.
What am I doing wrong? How can I free up/halve that desk space without losing all my folders, notes, labelled images, compiled documents et cetera? (Like the last time).
I am pretty sure I am the problem, and I’ve just set this up in an idiotic way.
If I need to explain anything please do let me know.
Best, Camilla
For advanced projects you need to account for the project file itself, the original image files and the image cache. The image cache contains variants of your original photos, most notably the smaller images used in the project view. If the image file is cleared or deleted, Tropy will re-create those images as needed if the original files are available (the process shows up as ‘consolidating’ in the activity section).
All this is to say that normally the image cache should take up only a fraction of the disk space compared to your original photos. The originals still need to be available if you want to view them in full in Tropy, but it’s not too big of a problem if they are not available temporarily, so with the advanced project you have some flexibility to store the files e.g. on an external drive.
However, if your original photos are in a format that can’t be displayed natively using Tropy’s image renderer (like PDF, TIFF, JP2K, HEIC) then Tropy will also create a full size variant of the photo in compatible format in the image cache, essentially duplicating the disk space required to hold the project. I suspect this is what happens ins your case?
You can open the cache folder via the help menu. There should be one folder per project. How does the size compare to the size of the images in your project? If it is nearly the same that would suggest that Tropy has to create these full-size variants of your images.