Swapping large numbers of stories in the library (Twine desktop library)

Authoring Twine
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1

How can I mass-delete Twine stories from my library?

(Twine 2.6.1 desktop app, MacOS 13.0, Story Library files in the default save location of /Users/myusername/Documents/Twine/Stories/).

For example:

  1. can I edit a settings file somewhere to delete multiple stories, then restart the application?
  2. …or is it safe to delete documents directly from the Story Library on the file system, then restart? I’m worried about lingering metadata.

My use case: I sometimes need to archive and delete 40-100 stories, then import a different set. With the current Twine Stories list interface, which does not support multiple selection, deleting is tedious and takes a very long time. For example, I have multiple classes of ~40 students (past and present) writing different assignments in Twine, and research sets of dozens or hundreds of interactive works represented as Twine stories. While I can use tagging to load all of this simultaneously, beyond a certain number of works the interface becomes very unwieldy, especially when importing new single titles which pop up somewhere into a list of over a hundred existing works. I also wish to keep my research and teaching data separate, which means swapping out sets of libraries interface. I could try to do this under completely separate user accounts, but I would rather have the flexibility to reorganize and regroup as needed.

Thanks for any advice or suggestions,
Jeremy

2

If you don’t need to keep a copy of the files somewhere (or already have made one outside of the default save location), then yeah, delete as you wish :slight_smile:
You can do so directly from the Stories folder (the default save location).
Note: if deleting the files in Stories is not enough, you may need to remove the folders in Twine/Backup as well. But that should be a last case.

You can always reopen/re-add a Twine file by re-importing it into the library (or adding it to the Stories folder).

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3

Thank you.

Should I keep the Twine app closed while deleting things from the Stories folder and then relaunch, or does it not matter?

If stories can be removed directly from the Stories folder, can they be added directly to the Stories folder as well?

For example, I notice that the Backups folder keeps individual story files, not a combined archive file like the one Library > Archive creates. This suggests (?) that during backup recovery they are restored directly to the stories folder as individual files.

4

Closing the app before deleting might be the best way to go at it (just in case Twine re-save the files when you close it).

Yes! Tried and tested!

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