Storage & files

Where Ditto's files live on disk, how much space they take, and how to back up, migrate, or wipe them.

The two main locations

Ditto splits its files between two folders:

Uninstalling Ditto removes the program folder but leaves your data. This is intentional — reinstalling preserves your shortcut, theme, downloaded models, etc. To remove everything, see the “Wiping” section below.

The program folder

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Ditto\ (typically around 1 GB after install)

You shouldn’t need to touch any of this. Modifying it can break the app or trip integrity checks.

The user data folder

%APPDATA%\ditto\

ditto/
├── config.json          — your settings
├── ditto-history.json   — up to 100 recent transcriptions
├── models/              — downloaded Whisper models
│   ├── ggml-base.bin
│   ├── ggml-small.bin
│   └── ...
├── formatter-models/    — optional Qwen3 writing model
└── Cache/, Code Cache/, GPUCache/  — Chromium caches (auto-managed)

What you’d actually care about:

config.json is your settings file. Plain text JSON, safe to back up or version-control. Open it with any editor to inspect.

models/ contains downloaded Whisper models. Each .bin is between 75 MB and 2.9 GB depending on the model size. Manage them directly from Settings → Models.

formatter-models/ contains the optional Qwen3 1.7B model used for smart local formatting. It is about 1.3 GB and can be removed from Settings → Models.

ditto-history.json stores up to 100 recent final transcriptions when history is enabled. Manage it from Settings → History rather than editing the JSON directly.

Caches are Chromium’s standard renderer caches. They auto-manage themselves. Safe to delete if you want — they’ll be regenerated.

Temporary files

While transcribing, Ditto writes a temporary WAV to %TEMP%:

%TEMP%\ditto-<timestamp>.wav

It’s deleted immediately after the transcription finishes (in the IPC handler’s finally block). If Ditto crashes mid-transcription, the WAV may be left behind — Windows’ built-in temp cleanup eventually removes it, or you can clear %TEMP% manually.

Backing up your setup

If you want to preserve your settings and downloaded models:

1. Close Ditto (right-click tray → Quit).
2. Copy %APPDATA%\ditto\ to a backup location (USB, cloud sync folder, etc.).
3. Restart Ditto.

That single folder is everything Ditto needs to recreate your setup. The program folder is interchangeable across installs of the same version.

Migrating to a new machine

To move Ditto to a different PC:

1. On the old machine: copy %APPDATA%\ditto\ to a USB stick or network share.
2. On the new machine: install Ditto from the latest installer.
3. Before the welcome window appears (or right after closing it), copy the ditto folder into %APPDATA%\ on the new machine, replacing the one Ditto created on first launch.
4. Start Ditto. Your shortcut, theme, language, and models are all there.

Wiping everything

To completely reset Ditto:

From the app: Settings → Advanced → Delete all data.

This:

• Resets every setting to its default.
• Deletes local transcription history and all downloaded Whisper and formatter models.
• Drops the “start with Windows” registry entry if it was set.
• Restarts the app from scratch — you’ll see the welcome window again.

Manually: close Ditto, then rmdir /s /q "%APPDATA%\ditto" in cmd (or delete the folder in Explorer). On next launch, Ditto recreates an empty user data folder and shows the welcome window.

Quick reference