Manuel, James :: In my current approach, a file in "icon_files" folder is not removed ever, once it is written. This solves the following two purposes :: a) Space optimization :: =============== No need to write multiple files for the same activity icon. Earlier, many icon-files (containing the same contents) existed, owing to different random names of each new file in "/tmp" folder. b) Time optimization :: =============== Once it is seen that an activity-icon file (pertaining to a particular activity) exists, it is not re-written. For eg, at my end, "ls -l /home/ajay/.sugar/default/icon_files" gives :: [ajay@localhost ~]$ ls -l ~/.sugar/default/icon_files/ total 56 -rw-rw-r--. 1 ajay ajay 1220 Dec 10 23:47 activity-imageviewer.svg -rw-rw-r--. 1 ajay ajay 1685 Dec 10 23:47 activity-maze.svg -rw-rw-r--. 1 ajay ajay 1666 Dec 10 23:47 activity-memorize.svg -rw-rw-r--. 1 ajay ajay 714 Dec 10 23:47 activity-ruler.svg -rw-rw-r--. 1 ajay ajay 3677 Dec 10 23:47 activity-scratch.svg -rw-rw-r--. 1 ajay ajay 836 Dec 10 23:47 activity-terminal.svg -rw-rw-r--. 1 ajay ajay 21378 Dec 10 23:47 gcompris.svg -rw-rw-r--. 1 ajay ajay 4110 Dec 10 23:47 icono2.svg I am open to any new approaches; we have done the important part of diagnosing :D <div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 1:40 AM, James Cameron <<a href="mailto:quozl@laptop.org" target="_blank">quozl@laptop.org</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">How are the .svg files in /icon_files removed? -- James Cameron <a href="http://quozl.linux.org.au/" target="_blank">http://quozl.linux.org.au/</a> </blockquote></div> Regards, Ajay Garg Dextrose Developer Activity Central: <a href="http://activitycentral.com/" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" target="_blank">http://activitycentral.com</a>