Yes, typically Yate utilizes the free space to avoid rewriting the entire audio file when changing the tag information. If the free space (or padding) is not sufficient the entire file must be rewritten which is slower.

There are two ways you can reclaim the space. The first affects all 'saves'. In Preferences-Audo set the Remove free space option and set the Padding to whatever size you desire. Note that if you set the padding to zero a small amount may still be kept as some players exhibit issues with a zero pad depending on the order of the information in the file. (Typically not more than about 10 bytes).

The above method is used whenever you save files. Unless you are changing something in the file there is no way to directly save an unmodified track from the UI (menu system).

There is an action function called Save which has an option named Save if free space is greater than padding size. If you use this method with All selected and no other option checked, all loaded files which have been modified or which have more free space than the padding will be saved. This method ignores the Preferences-Audo Remove free space option.

I hope this helps.