You will be surprised how many you delete if you have saved every freebie that came down the Pike like I did. I have found soooo many duplicate files as well. I am on a vacation with friends with lots of down time and nothing to distract me, so I have been doing the same thing. I have deleted over 2000 designs (starting with 247,000) so plan to pare it down to a managable 200,000! In my dreams anyway. Good luck.

Well done. You will feel so good when it is complete. Hugs Sarah.

I need to do this also, but where to start, finding anything take's forever...

Keep with it, you will be glad you did.

I can't remember where but I downloaded a file with folders, each a type of embroidery file and I've been very good to put things in their proper folder! I still have the zip file with all the folders, can I share or is this a no-no? I could make a list of these folders. Would this be ok?

That is a major task and I wish you well in your endeavor.

You have started well! Good luck.
Hugs, Lidia

Since I not only digitize my own designs as well as have a ton of freebies. To keep them organise, I do three things. 1. I use a software call embroidery deduper to delete the unwanted formats that I don't need. 2. I keep a file on my laptop and external drive call E-files to keep all designs in one, location. 3. I list file folders A-Z in my e-file folder, such as 3-d, angels, eof, fsl etc. Since doing this I back up my files weekly onto mmy external drive and they stay organize. Since doing this my life is so much easilier. I wish you luck in what you are doing.
Smiles
Sewinhuggs

good luck!

Good for you! Also, glad you're brave enough to delete badly digitized designs, you know you're not going to use those, and they're just taking up space. Best of luck, keep up the good work, hugs, Marji

Great Job and you will be so happy when its done!

A month ago when my machine was waiting for parts I started cleaning out my files. I can find everything, just needed the duplicates and file formats I don't use to be deleted. About four months after I brought my embroidery machine I realized I needed a better filing method and I've stuck with it. I put everything into a daily file, unzip, run a scan, and then drop them into their files. Had a mess when our son was married and too busy to file so doing this every day makes a difference.

I have a folder for the "horrible digitizing". I keep them. That way, when I come across that design again, I can search my computer and see that I already have it, and don't have to trial-and-error twice on the same design.

as sure as you delete a file you think you will never use you want it ...I do a hard copy of all embroidery designs every months depending how many new ones i have accumulated this way if you have deleted one you can rescure it from your hard copy...good luck imust do mine to...soozie

I love the anwers here. Way to go! I work files ever week, my hubby gets mad that I am on the computer all day! ME work is never done that is for sure. Live Laugh Download Stitch!

I have been going through my designs and binning the poorly digitized one for the past few months. Am only about half way there. It is one way of refreshing your memory on what you have. Congratulations on starting a time consuming job. Shirley

Found this link on SewForum, think it might be what everyone is looking for. Sure hope this helps! *** Very important to read the complete info before downloading ***

Christie in Germany

Since my machine is not working I have been ignoring the freebies section LOL I too have at least 100,000 freebies so am not in need of more but I do continue to collect the free snowmen. Too many sites use the auto digitize feature of their software to create designs and then do not manually clean them up and those freebie 'sets' are among the culprits. I did find and download a file with sections for storing the files and over time I've added my own folders, it does help keep all the files in some sort of order!!

I am doing the same thing!! I have to hold my breath before I hit delete & hope I am not sorry later. Had many designs that I haden't even looked at for probably 5 years so that was sort of fun seeing how my tastes have changed.