Steam keeps RE-ADDING named save files I deleted in Windows

[srpadget]

I am an advocate of the "save early, save often" school of thought. This habit usually serves me well. But not now.

I now have over 600 savegame files in my main ongoing career game. I CANNOT GET RID OF THEM. I mean, I can and I do -- big bulk-deletes of hundreds at a time, using the usual straightforward Windows shift-click and delete. The files vanish from my directory structure as expected.

But then when I restart KSP from Steam, Steam ADDS THEM BACK. I assume it thinks it's "fixing" my "corrupted/missing" files or some such, and if I were NOT doing it deliberately I'm sure I'd be quite grateful. But it's starting to take a long time even to display the "Load Save" dialog, and nigh-impossible to find the particular file I'm looking for in the game's UI.

How can I circumvent this, and force Steam to let me delete old save files I no longer need?

(Yes, KSP will let me delete a file from the "Load Save" dialog, but ... I can only select/delete one at a time. And see above re OVER SIX HUNDRED saves to delete. Surely there's a better way?)

[Manwith Noname]

Manually back everything up you want to keep just to be safe then disable "Steam cloud".

[srpadget]

Problem with that solution is that the cloud remembers its last-sync'd state. So if I ever turn Steam Cloud back ON, it immediately re-adds all those old files. And I kind of like having that cloud feature in case my files actually DO get corrupted.

But, as SO OFTEN happens when I admit publicly that I can't solve a seemingly-simple problem, IMMEDIATELY after posting the question I sorted out an answer that worked (at least for me). Posting here in case someone else has a similar issue and wants a similar solution.

My desired parameters: delete the files I want deleted, while retaining the ability to use Steam's sync to cloud feature in the future--see above re being glad of this feature if my files actually WERE corrupted.

The solution that worked for me:

Start KSP
Go to Settings and run in window rather than full screen
WITH KSP STILL RUNNING:
Go to Windows, bring up my save folder overstuffed with old saves
Mass-delete old saves as desired
(Optional) Go back to Settings and revert back to full-screen mode
Quit out of KSP

Steam will re-sync its cloud files when KSP starts and again when it quits--but if done as above, it ends up syncing that folder to its state AFTER DELETING all those old saves.

I'll have to go in and do this again every now and then, but it lets me keep the useful parts of Steam's cloud-sync while still letting me de-clutter my saves.

[☭Woodsman☭]

I just cleaned out my cloud saves the other day, but fortunately for me, I didn't wait until I had several hundred of them. I don't see them adding a select all feature to the save selection screen any time soon, so in the meantime you can just delete 2 or 3 a day and it'll be cleared out in less than a year lol

[Manwith Noname]

If your saves do become corrupt, the cloud won't know and will happily keep copying them.

Glad you found some obscure way to handle it but honestly, Steam cloud is terrible (primarily due to lack of decent file management) and is the ultimate cause for the problem you encountered.

[RoofCat]

Why don't you just keep your installation clean? Complicated mission might create 001...020 saves easily. But you can make one permanent of your choice and deleting all the rest before you exit KSP. Sync works both ways afaik. Steam won't save files you have deleted. Or keep the same temporary 001..020 files over longer period of time just overwriting them as the next mission requires more steps.