Often, due to the operation of some processes, the user suddenly notices that a TMP file has appeared in the system. What is it, far from all guess. And attempts to open it with the usual double-click in most cases lead to nothing. We will deal with the issue of opening and viewing.
Tmp file: what is it?
In general terms, the abbreviation for the TMP file format comes from English temporary. Such objects can appear in the system in a variety of situations - when installing software, when opening documents and saving them, when backing up for the purpose of subsequent restoration of information, etc.
If you look at the extension that the TMP file has, what it is, you can explain it from the point of view of the functioning of some processes. In fact, such an object contains temporary information captured at the time of activation of some application and used to roll back changes.
For example, any user noticed that when installing programs in the "Wizard" there are buttons to continue the installation and return to the previous stage to select other parameters. All this is made possible by moving process information to a temporary TMP file.
In the same way, you can consider the same office applications in which there is a function of canceling the changes made or returning the document to its original state, when there were no changes at all. Temporary objects are also responsible for such actions. And they also have the function of restoring during emergency closure of documents that were not saved by the user, but went through the autosave procedure. Have you noticed how sometimes office editors suggest restoring an unsaved document?
Very often, temporary files can be found when downloading information from the Internet. In particular, music from the popular VKontakte social network can be downloaded in this form. Only in this case, the downloaded files for listening later will need to rename and change the extension to MP3.
How to open tmp file in simplest way
To open an object (s) of this type, it is not enough to pay attention only to the extension (.tmp). You should also consider his name.
Most often, only files with “normal” names can be viewed without problems. But the files, at the very beginning of the name of which the “~” symbol is present, are objects of a closed type, which cannot be opened when the application using it is active.
If we consider standard temporary files, you can open them for viewing in any text editor like the standard Notepad or even the Word office editor. But here, the user can often lie in wait for disappointment. The fact is that in most cases, instead of plain text, a meaningless set of characters will appear on the screen. And this is by no means connected with the encoding, which in the same Word can be changed quite simply.
Sometimes opening can be done using any Internet browser - yes even the same Internet Explorer.
Often, such objects contain cache data or information on the emergency shutdown of a program or even on a forced reboot of the operating system itself.
A special kind of TMP file format
There is another kind of format that a TMP file can have. What is this format? The most common are temporary files of currently edited projects created in the musical note application Finale.
Such objects are also a type of closed file that cannot be viewed using standard methods. Their function is similar to the role of temporary files of other programs, however, they contain information on data caching and settings of the current project.
TMP file removal issues
So, we examined the TMP file. What it is, probably already a little clear. Now a few words about the occurrence and deletion of objects of this type. In the standard version, temporary files that are responsible for the installation or opening of documents are automatically deleted upon application completion. For example, just look at the appearance of a temporary object when you open a Word document. When you close the program, the file will disappear.
Another thing is when such objects are stored in the Temp folder (either in the system or in the user directory) or in the Temporary Internet Files directory. From here they can be deleted manually. But if at the moment the file is used by some program, it will be impossible to do this. The presence of temporary files remaining after the programs are shut down is typical mainly for outdated Windows systems.
If there is a need to remove this kind of garbage, it is better to use optimizer programs that allow you to search for all objects of this type, including application cache files, and delete them without affecting the operation of the system.