Save All Plots Already Present in the Panel of Rstudio

Save all plots already present in the panel of Rstudio

In RStudio, every session has a temporary directory that can be obtained using tempdir(). Inside that temporary directory, there is another directory that always starts with "rs-graphics" and contains all the plots saved as ".png" files. Therefore, to get the list of ".png" files you can do the following:

plots.dir.path <- list.files(tempdir(), pattern="rs-graphics", full.names = TRUE); 
plots.png.paths <- list.files(plots.dir.path, pattern=".png", full.names = TRUE)

Now, you can copy these files to your desired directory, as follows:

file.copy(from=plots.png.paths, to="path_to_your_dir")

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Additional feature:

As you will notice, the .png file names are automatically generated (e.g., 0078cb77-02f2-4a16-bf02-0c5c6d8cc8d8.png). So if you want to number the .png files according to their plotting order in RStudio, you may do so as follows:

plots.png.detials <- file.info(plots.png.paths)
plots.png.detials <- plots.png.detials[order(plots.png.detials$mtime),]
sorted.png.names <- gsub(plots.dir.path, "path_to_your_dir", row.names(plots.png.detials), fixed=TRUE)
numbered.png.names <- paste0("path_to_your_dir/", 1:length(sorted.png.names), ".png")

# Rename all the .png files as: 1.png, 2.png, 3.png, and so on.
file.rename(from=sorted.png.names, to=numbered.png.names)

Hope it helps.

Display and save the plot simultaneously in R, RStudio

I found the previous answers as being incomplete. Drilled down on how to display the plot in the default RStudio "Plots" window and save the plot in "png" at the same time.

In case that someday, someone might come across the same question, here is how is being done, line by line:

R:> 
R:> dev.list()                  # fresh start. no graphical devices available at this point
NULL
R:> dev.cur()                   # no current device at this point
null device 
      1 
R:> dev.new()                   # open graphical devices
NULL
R:> dev.list()                  # list them
     RStudioGD quartz_off_screen 
        2                 3 
R:> png("plot50.png")           # open an offscreen device as png. New device should be number 4
R:> dev.list()                  # the list of all graphical devices includes the newly created device, number 4
    RStudioGD quartz_off_screen quartz_off_screen 
          2          3               4 
R:> dev.cur()                   # NOTE: the new created device(number 4) becomes "current" automatically,
quartz_off_screen               # as soon as it has been created
            4 
R:> dev.set(which = 2)          # switch back to device 2 used to display the plot in the default RStudio 
                                # "Plots" window
RStudioGD 
    2 
R:> dev.cur()                   # indeed, RstudioGD becomes the current device after the switch step from above
RStudioGD 
    2 
R:> dev.list()                  # just a check on all available devices. device 4 still in the list after 
                                # the switch
    RStudioGD quartz_off_screen quartz_off_screen 
            2           3                 4 
R:> plot(c(1:100))              # plot an example. It will be displayed in "Plots" window of RStudio
R:> dev.list()                  # just a check on all the available devices
   RStudioGD quartz_off_screen quartz_off_screen 
      2                 3                 4 
R:> dev.copy(which = 4)         # copies from current device(RStudioGD) to device 4. It automatically sets
   quartz_off_screen            # device 4 as current
         4 
R:> dev.cur()                   # indeed , device 4 is the current device
  quartz_off_screen 
         4 
R:> dev.off()                   # close device 4. IMPORTANT: AT THIS POINT the plot is saved as
    RStudioGD                   # png("plot50.png") in the current working directory.
                                # Three actions takes place at this point, all at once:
                                # 1. closes device 4
                                # 2. save the plot as "plot50.png"
                                # 3. sets the dev.next() (which is RStudioGD) as the current device
       2 
R:> dev.cur()                   # RStudioGD becomes current as soon as device 4 has been closed down.
   RStudioGD 
       2 
R:> 

How do you delete the current (but not all) plots in the RStudio plotting device?

In R, you would just use dev.new() before each plot, so you dev.off() to only clear the last plot.

In RStudio, you can use x11(), windows() or quartz() (depending on your device) before each plot. Then call dev.off() to clear last plot. You can also use dev.set() to choose specific plots that way.

If your question is specifically asking to delete the last plot within the same RStudio window (rather than making new windows), not sure if it's possible, since RStudio treats that window as one device. An idea would be to look at a way to call the C++ function removePlot() in the RStudio project.

I found in the Github repository for RStudio the C++ code:

display.removePlot(display.activePlotIndex());

You could output the plots and manage the files that way.

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