What if the Unity project folder had a temp folder?

A lot of the files in Unity are generated and/or baked by subsystems and can be easily re-generated or will need to be regenerated for a new build.

So why not have a temp folder where Unity can store any intermediate temporary regenerable files e.g.

temp_lighting
temp_occlusion
temp_<useful name here>
​

Then we would know that we can trim down old projects easily by removing their temp files.

Just saying as I have lots of old projects and they do bloat out the hard drive and most of the bulk of them is in meta or generated / baked files.

 

The concept is to make it explicit which folders contain engine generated data by their prefix.

 

Yeah, but why? The Library folder is quite explicitly that already, you can delete it and Unity will regenerate everything in it. Unless you are referring to a separation of temp assets that *should* be committed to the VCS but can be regenerated if necessary.

 

Imagine the difference between the list of files and folders you need to keep for your game now and a future where you can ignore/drop/delete all temp_* folders as they have generated content.

Another approach would be to have a /Core/ and /Generated/ branching folders, so you would only need the core game content.

 

What are you attempting to solve by this suggestion of prefixes? Surely deleting the temp / lib folders trims project enough for storage?

 

The concept is how can Unity make it simpler to work out what files can be trimmed, can I just delete the Library folder or only some sub-folders.

With a Temp post/prefix or Generated / Core branches then it becomes much clearer what files can be removed safely.

 

But as it stands you can always safely delete the entire Library folder, provided you have visible meta files.

 

OK, I see, so that you could drop, for example, all the GI stuff if necessary, as they are stored in the project itself, not the library.

 

Not sure storage is a concern. Terabytes cost very little. Haven't been able to fill my drives for a long time - 5 years or more now.