.tmp files

temporary files are created by software for a variety of reasons.

The most common is when you install new software, or updates, the installer extracts files from an archive and uses the .tmp files to install the application.

Also, some file viewers create .tmp files in order to view the contents of a file. If you look at a readme file from within a zip archive, a .tmp file is created to temporarily store the extracted file so that the software you use to open that type of file can have afile to work with.

Ideally, when you close the software, or complete the installation, the .tmp file should be deleted. numerous programming or operating system issues can interfere with the file being deleted. So, you build a growing number of .tmp files over time if you do not manually delete them.

MS Word is a prolific tmp file producer. It also leaves its shards all over the place. Here's an article that talks about it. Type the Q number in the solutions including box at support.microsoft.com

How Word for Windows Uses Temporary Files

Q89247

Microsoft as a whole, also leaves lots of ~*.* files. You can safely remove any file or folder that begins with a ~ .