Where does Reaper store the audio that gets saved in standalone Project Bays?

[talustalus]

..Or where can we specify the folder to store this audio?

I've asked this a few times in the General Forum but no one knew.
I figure since it's really an 'under the hood' question, I may have better luck here.

I don't want to accidentally delete audio that is tied to my many saved standalone Project Bays.

Thanks.

[schwa]

If you run the action "show REAPER resource path in explorer" and go to the ProjectBays folder, that's where the project bay information is kept. But media files are stored in the project bay as a path reference (in other words, the files themselves are not stored there), so that may not be so useful for avoiding deleting media.

[talustalus]

Originally Posted by schwa

If you run the action "show REAPER resource path in explorer" and go to the ProjectBays folder, that's where the project bay information is kept. But media files are stored in the project bay as a path reference (in other words, the files themselves are not stored there), so that may not be so useful for avoiding deleting media.

Thank you, and I should have mentioned that I can find the ProjectBay folder but the media files elude me.

I guess I'll have to ask Cockos where I can find these media files. They must be stored somewhere, and I know it's not a cloud system so they are on the computer somewhere, it's confusing for sure.

[schwa]

Originally Posted by talustalus

Thank you, and I should have mentioned that I can find the ProjectBay folder but the media files elude me.

Open the .ReaBay files in a text editor. You will see lines like

ITEM 1 "C:\Users\schwa\Documents\music snippets\cues.wav" cues.wav

That means that project bay includes the media file at that path. The media file itself is not stored anywhere other than at that path. The project bay does not copy media files anywhere, it stores paths to the existing files.

Originally Posted by talustalus

I guess I'll have to ask Cockos where I can find these media files

[talustalus]

Ah, thanks. You are absolutely correct.

Opened with the text editor and there was the path.

This path happens to be the path that is set in Preferences > General > Paths > 'Default recording path when project is unsaved..'

Good to know. Mystery solved!