Stop putting backups in my Journal folder

[dplumb_BWBR]

This is probably something most people aren't even aware of, but when you edit a file from a network drive, Revit saves a copy in your Journal folder

(C:\Users\you\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit\Autodesk Revit 2018\Journals)

This has caused problems in our office when people, over the years, end up with hundreds or even thousands of .rfa and .rvt files in their Journal folder.

Since most people aren't even aware of these "backups", they never get flushed out and have been filling up of hard drives.

We do not need these backup copies.

We have a network, and it is very good about making it's own backup copies.

I would encourage everyone to take a peek at their Journal folders. You may be surprised at how much is in there.

[dplumb_BWBR]

Whenever you edit a family from a network location, Revit saves a copy in your Journals folder.

I had forgotten about that & just had to delete 191 .rfs files!

• It's not necessary to save a backup. This file is on my network and we do our own backups.
• There is already a family.0001.rfa file in the same folder as the new version.
• Even if I wanted a(nother) backup, the Journals file is not the place to save it. Few people even know this is happening.

Eiher give me the option to specify a location, or juwt stop creating that unneccessary backup.

[dplumb_BWBR]

There are also a billion (OK, a couple hundred) .dmp files in the Journals folder.

Those should be cleaned up just like the old Journal.####.txt files are.

Currently they never get deleted.

But I've already filed a bug ticket about that.

[m.voss.alvine]

 try using the"bulk rename utility".  I have been able to use it to find all backup files on our network library.  It doesn't give you the option to delete the files, but you can select them and move them to a temp folder and delete them there.  I was able to find and delete 500 backup files in 2 minutes.

[dplumb_BWBR]

Oh, I know where they are and how to delete them.

It's just that there's no reason for them to be there in the first place.

Why should I HAVE to delete them?

I'm also quite sure that most people don't even know those files even exist or that Revit that tends to work better after they are deleted.

[Anonymous]

OK, apparently I've never had this issue or I'm doing something wrong. I read about this in this idea, so I went to look at my .rfs backup files and I searched for .rfs files in my entire C: drive and found nothing. I searched for Journals folder and found 4, all of which are sub-folders of various 3dsMax folders. Looked just in case, and those are empty (I never/rarely use 3dsMax). Am I missing something? We have our families on a network drive and I edit them all the time. I've never deleted any .rfs or .dmp files. Am I looking in the entirely wrong spot or what? Is this only apply to a Revit Server application of the software?

[dplumb_BWBR]

Sorry. That was a typo & I can't edit my first post.

That should have been .rfa files, not .rfs.

Your Journal files will be in your user's AppData folder under Local

Mine are here

C:\Users\MYNAME\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit\Autodesk Revit 2016\Journals

You may not see the AppData folder if Windows is set to not show hidden folders, but if you go to your user folder and then type in APPDATA, you'll get there & you can browse the rest of the way down.

And, of course, check for each version of Revit you have installed.

[Anonymous]

OK...  Now I see them in my Revit 2016 and Revit 2017 folders within the C:\Users\MYNAME\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit\ folder.  I had a few in the 2016 folder and 5,999 in my 2017 folder!!!!  Nothing in my 2018 folder....  makes me wonder if this is already implemented??? @sasha.crotty???

[Anonymous]

Oh, and not just .rfa files, .rvt files as well.  Interesting.

[dplumb_BWBR]

It only makes a "backup" copy of the .rfa files when you edit a family that's stored on a network drive

[adrian.calabria]

Couldn't agree more dplumb. I kept running out of hard drive space working on a big project & found the journal folder was the culprit. I had files in there from 4 years ago!

If we can't disable this, can the development team give us the reason why?

[Simon_Weel]

We use the Domain Logon script to clean out all kinds of (user) backup and temporary folders. To do that, a Command Line program with the ability to remove files with a defined age is used.

[dplumb_BWBR]

Simon: There's already a Revit Option to delete Journal Files after x # of days. 

a.) Why not include other file types besides just Journal.####.txt? ( There are also .dmp files and others that never get deleted)

b.) But, really, why are the .rfa files even saved there? Most people don't even know that happens, and NO ONE doesn't have a network backup copy. Not to mention that saving the file also creates a .00##.rfa file.

[Anonymous]

Here, here . . . stupid idea Revit! 

[martyny]

I've just checked my Journal File Cleanup. It is set to delete journals older than 10 days once I reach a total of journals greater than 10.

Then I looked at my journals file and found 29 journal files, none of which was older than 10 days. Total 49.4Mb, Fine!

In addition to the journal files there are backups of various files that Revit has created, 101 files 8.9GB most of which are from over a month ago when I last deleted the journal folder contents.

Where is Revit's Cleanup strategy for these backups???

Cheers