Any reason not to 'Move All Media Into Project Directory'

This seems to be the smarter way to save projects as it stores all the media in that particular projects folder, so you don't end up with hundreds/thousands of wavs all in the REAPER MEDIA folder. Is there a particular reason why this setting isn't enabled by default and what are the possible downsides if any to saving projects this way? Thanks all,

For example, you might have folder(s) containing media files (samples) that are shared by several projects. In that case you wouldn't want to move them, though you might want to copy them.

^exactly. I use copy instead.

I figure hard drive space is the cheapest part of any DAW these days, I never share files in projects...Every project has it's own audio files.

no. it should be global default to copy. the only way not to get screw up things.

Yeah, I think copying files should be a default. In some DAWs, you need to save the project before you start recording, which is both a good and bad thing. If you need to save a project before you start recording, it's less of a chance to mess up the file directory. I like that I can start recording in REAPER straight away, but I lost a couple of projects when I started using REAPER because I cleared the unused files from a REAPER project. Now, after I've configured the file system in REAPER, It's not a problem anymore, but as a newbie, it's really easy to mess up projects with the default settings.

Definitely have project settings to save media to a subfolder of the project directory (have it as default, have it in any start-up templates); save at least a temp name before you record, and try to name the tracks (gives the waves meaningful names). I prefer, personally, to set that "copy..." tickbox manually as I've been caught out on "save" with REAPER launching into a several-minute copy-a-thon, but I can see it makes sense for some as a default. It does make sense too, to have the Project Bay open on your docker, and take an active interest in where your files are in more complicated setups. In many cases, my files are not recorded in REAPER, but imported; I tend to have multiple projects that share the large file-sets, together in one folder above the media folder to reduce duplication and complexity. Proxy items has made assembling the results from these multiple projects a breeze now though :) Got to say, file (mis-) management and losing ref to source files is the most common call for help I get ;) >

If you want a specific media library to be re-used - as I could wish - Reaper has to be aware of its path. Only but one path is given to Reaper : the Media folder "where to save media files". The sharing requirement for one or several media folders is so to be given to Reaper a ('comma separated') list of search paths for its media files - which doesn't exist at the moment. I am very eager of such a possibility as I often have to re-use a lot of heavy files which take time to 'copy' as well as to 'move' into the unique Media folder.