Engineering Technician Hayden Clarke shares a tip with us that can help speed up AutoCAD's search abilities.

"Memory limits and speed are current issues when using AutoCAD. One way to increase performance is to keep AutoCAD's temporary files folder clean. If it isn't monitored, this folder can grow to upwards of several gigabytes. To clean it out, go to C:acadtemp and sort by date; delete everything older than, say, a couple of weeks ago. This will improve AutoCAD's search and referencing times."
 
Notes from Cadalyst Tip Patrol: This tip is absolutely right. I have a principle of CAD use efficiency: The less you have to do, the quicker you can get it done. The same goes for searching for files. The shorter the list is, the quicker you can go through it. AutoCAD is the same way. It stores "temporary" files (if they are temporary, why do they stay until you delete them?) in a folder somewhere on your computer. This helps with the Undo command, xrefs, and more. The Autosave feature could even be filling this folder up for you.

Hayden told us where to find this folder, but he has customized its location, or at least somebody in his office has. That's fine — in fact, it might be a good idea. Regardless, AutoCAD can tell you where your temporary folder is. Type Options on the Command line to open the Options Manager. Go to the Files tab and drill down to Temporary Drawing Files Location and Temporary External Reference File Location. Also take a look at the Automatic Save File Location. They are probably all the same. In addition to noting the location of the temporary file folder, I would also change the Autosave folder; it could be a lifesaver someday.