What's the best way to cleanup content folders?

Member_257874

I have collected a few freebies over the year and a few I don't use anymore. They usually don't come with an uninstaller so I am looking for a way to remove these, that I don't use anymore without having to delete everything, geometries, textures, morphs ect manually.

Is this possible?

JD_Mortal

The easy way...

If they are Daz freebies, you can just remove them from the DIM tool, then redownload them and install, changing your DIM settings to "create an uninstaller". Then you just select them all and uninstall them, at that point. (Unfortunately, there is no UNINSTALL, without having created an uninstaller, though all the info needed for uninstalling is in Daz, in most cases.)

If they have the "Support files", those can be used to locate all the files (or most of them), which were installed. "..\My DAZ 3D Library\Runtime\Support\", all the filename.dsx files. The files show the paths and file-names, so Daz's CMS content manager, can locate all the files related to a specific product-ID or product-name. Thus, you know where all the files for that product are now located too. There is no easy way, that I know of, to see the info for actual products, but there may be a way, within Daz.

If they were just drop-in content, from other sites, it can be more complicated. They may have placed everything in one folder, or spread them across many locations. (A practice which I wish they would stop doing, because it isn't needed.) You would have to locate the items details page, and they often have a list of all installed files and where they would have been placed. Daz has this too, by product number. However, this does not account for updates which may have changed file-names and locations.

EG, this is a link to an old daz product "4761" the "Astra" model, file-list page... Works with most product numbers... Just change the product number with the item you want to remove. (You can see product numbers, in order, for old content, from the Content manager maintanance page. Act like you want to "update" the database, or reload it... It will show you the list of all items and item-numbers. (All the products seen in the "Support" folder.)

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/4761/file_list

Here is another link for another sites "file list"... (This may get removed, but I'll add it anyways.) A random product from the "Renderosity" website.

https://bw-1651cf0d2f737d7adeab84d339dbabd3-bcs.s3.amazonaws.com/products/product_136375/Help136375.txt

However, those lists can get quite long... Keep in mind, you only need to delete the FOLDER, in most cases. Unless you see other unlisted items in that folder, which may be for another product.

There is also a program, but it is a pay program, which can locate missing files and locate all files, which specific products use, both new and old. It actually examines the file contents to see what other files it links to. However, I don't recall the programs name. It was a little more complex for what I needed it to do, and above my desired price-range.

For the record, you would only need about five windows open, where most items store the core-files, at a generic root-level. Excluding the user-names and product-named folders. Though, it is no less of a headache to manage, to hunt the files down manually.

P.S. Uninstallers may also not get rid of all the empty files, and may still leave useless files behind... Especially if an item had an update and the old files are not even known by the new uninstaller. Thus, the uninstaller can't remove them.

Richard Haseltine

If they didn't have an installer you would need to look at the folder structure in the original zip to guide your removal.

Member_257874

JD_Mortal said:

The easy way...

If they are Daz freebies, you can just remove them from the DIM tool, then redownload them and install, changing your DIM settings to "create an uninstaller". Then you just select them all and uninstall them, at that point. (Unfortunately, there is no UNINSTALL, without having created an uninstaller, though all the info needed for uninstalling is in Daz, in most cases.)

If they have the "Support files", those can be used to locate all the files (or most of them), which were installed. "..\My DAZ 3D Library\Runtime\Support\", all the filename.dsx files. The files show the paths and file-names, so Daz's CMS content manager, can locate all the files related to a specific product-ID or product-name. Thus, you know where all the files for that product are now located too. There is no easy way, that I know of, to see the info for actual products, but there may be a way, within Daz.

If they were just drop-in content, from other sites, it can be more complicated. They may have placed everything in one folder, or spread them across many locations. (A practice which I wish they would stop doing, because it isn't needed.) You would have to locate the items details page, and they often have a list of all installed files and where they would have been placed. Daz has this too, by product number. However, this does not account for updates which may have changed file-names and locations.

EG, this is a link to an old daz product "4761" the "Astra" model, file-list page... Works with most product numbers... Just change the product number with the item you want to remove. (You can see product numbers, in order, for old content, from the Content manager maintanance page. Act like you want to "update" the database, or reload it... It will show you the list of all items and item-numbers. (All the products seen in the "Support" folder.)

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/4761/file_list

Here is another link for another sites "file list"... (This may get removed, but I'll add it anyways.) A random product from the "Renderosity" website.

https://bw-1651cf0d2f737d7adeab84d339dbabd3-bcs.s3.amazonaws.com/products/product_136375/Help136375.txt

However, those lists can get quite long... Keep in mind, you only need to delete the FOLDER, in most cases. Unless you see other unlisted items in that folder, which may be for another product.

There is also a program, but it is a pay program, which can locate missing files and locate all files, which specific products use, both new and old. It actually examines the file contents to see what other files it links to. However, I don't recall the programs name. It was a little more complex for what I needed it to do, and above my desired price-range.

For the record, you would only need about five windows open, where most items store the core-files, at a generic root-level. Excluding the user-names and product-named folders. Though, it is no less of a headache to manage, to hunt the files down manually.

P.S. Uninstallers may also not get rid of all the empty files, and may still leave useless files behind... Especially if an item had an update and the old files are not even known by the new uninstaller. Thus, the uninstaller can't remove them.

wow thanks for the detailed answer!

Yes most are shareCG stuff renderosity freebies and stuff from the forum here, that came in various zip files and so on. I hardly use any V4 generation stuff anymore so I might as well remove it. Especially textures can take up some bit of space.

Maybe I'll take me to a weekend and try to come up with some reader script in python.

JD_Mortal

Maybe I'll take me to a weekend and try to come up with some reader script in python.

I think I saw sample code, for daz scripting, related to reading info from the CMS data. (Product ID, Name, Files...) But I am not sure if you need the SDK installed to use that code. (Or if it was internal Daz script, or some external API code.)

Though, the files are all simple JSON formatted and easy to parse with most text-based processing code.