Cleaning up temporary Data Extensions – DESelect

Are you wondering how can you clean up the old temporary Data Extensions created by DESelect? If so, then read up!

What are the temporary Data Extensions?

Temporary Data Extensions are Data Extensions created internally by DESelect in two scenarios:

When you use the Run Preview feature
- DESelect stores the results of the preview in a temporary Data Extension so the Target Data Extension is not affected.
When using Prio Deduplication
- DESelect creates 2 temporary Data Extensions where: on the first Data Extension, we run the selection normally, and on the second Data Extension, we apply the deduplication rules.

All the temporary Data Extensions are being stored under DESelect folder in SFMC Data Extensions.

If the list of temporary Data Extensions piles up, you might want to do some cleaning.

Some best practices when working with temporary Data Extensions would be the following:

Set your Data Retention Policy for temporary DEs in the Admin Panel: by making use of this feature, the temporary DE will be automatically deleted after a selected period of time.
Delete old selections that you don't need anymore, as it will delete the temporary Data Extensions related to it.
Clean up existing temporary Data Extensions, based on the LastModifiedDate: older temporary Data Extensions have fewer chances of being in use, so you can start by deleting the older ones

Note that even after deleting the temporary Data Extensions, the selections related to them will still be accessible and will work perfectly.