Optimize Pro Tools: Shrink Your Session Size

If you’ve ever worked in Pro Tools on a session that has a ton of tracks, playlists, edits, and regions then whether you know it or not you are creating one massive session with a bloated Audio Files folder. Pro Tools saves everything you record, no matter if you delete it from the edit window or record over it. The file is still there on your hard drive (and visible in your Regions bin). This can take up much needed space on your audio drive. Today I’m going to show you how to quickly and easily shrink your Pro Tools sessions and get rid of all the excess fat.

Select The Unused Regions

This will all take place from the Regions bin drop down menu. Make sure your Regions bin is visible and click on the drop down arrow on the top right of the bin. Arrow down and choose Select and then Unused from the menu.
You’re region bin should now show a bunch of highlighted names. These represent all pieces of audio and MIDI that Pro Tools is currently not using in your edit window. Keep in mind that audio on hidden playlists will not be selected as these are still “used” regions. Just not currently on top of the track.

Clear Unused Regions From Your Session

Now we need to tell Pro Tools to clear these regions out of our session. Go back to the Regions bin menu and choose the Clear option. A warning message will pop up asking you if you are sure you want to clear these regions. It will give you a choice to either clear them out of this session folder or delete them permanently from the hard drive. Typically it’s best to select “Remove” rather than delete. Only because it is possible that other sessions are pulling the audio from here and will be confused if it just disappears.

When Is This Helpful?

This processes is most helpful when wrapping up a recording or mix session. You’re pretty much done with the song and you just want to trim down the session size either for your archives or for sending the session on to a mixing engineer. Clearing out unused audio regions will give you a much leaner and easier file to backup/transfer over the web.