Question

In my Eclipse workspace I’ve noticed the .metadata folder keeps growing. Should I regularly delete this folder? What would be the consequences of it?

Apart from that, what information does the .metadata folder contain?

Answer 1

Deleting all the .metadata folder would remove all your project references from your workspace.

If your project is actually stored completely in the workspace (i.e. its sources are stored in the default workspace path), you would also lose your project contents as well – which is worse since you wouldn’t be able to re-import them.

I always recommend to keep your Eclipse project and its sources separate from the workspace.
See “What is “src” directory created by Eclipse?“.
That way, the settings specific to your projects are saved within your project (in the .settings directory), and not in the workspace.
Also, you need to move your launcher definitions in your project as well.

In that configuration, you can delete a workspace without much damage and simply re-import your project into a new workspace.