Programs and the operating system itself often store information in temporary files that get deleted automatically.

Performance: Reading directly from another process is often faster than having to write a temporary file to disk, then read it back in.

Nearly everything including the swap space and the temporary files is encrypted.

A named pipe can be used to transfer information from one application to another without the use of an intermediate temporary file.

Search results are stored in a temporary file for display purposes only.

The temporary file is purged from the system within several hours.

Microsoft Word documents create multiple temporary files as the user types.

The computer may save some of your personal data in temporary files.

The temporary files left behind can accumulate over time and consume a lot of disk space.

The program can also be set to filter out certain file types, like temporary files or other detritus on the hard drive.