TMP troubles

Q.

There are a lot of Microsoft Word files on my computer that keep appearing with the '-wrlxxxx.tmp' filename, where the xxxx is a series of strange numbers. I haven't ever tried opening these and I keep deleting them off and on. What is the significance of these files?

A.

Whenever you work on a document in Word, you'll find a plethora of additional, hidden files in various locations on your hard drive. These files will have the .doc and .tmp extensions and a prefix that begins with a tilde (~) followed by a dollar sign ($) created in the same folder. The aforementioned .tmp files are essentially temporary files that are used by Word while you work on the document. Under normal circumstances, they are automatically removed once you exit the program or close the document.

However, in some cases, such as during a power outage or a computer crash, these files may be left behind. Word basically uses these to temporarily store data in order to free up memory for other purposes or to prevent data loss, courtesy of its Auto Recover feature. By saving data to a temporary file first, the integrity of all data is ensured. Although there's actually no guarantee of these files being expendable and usually, it is safe to delete temporary files that are several weeks or months old.