Is it loading fast HDD or solid state drive? Looking to free up space on your Windows 10 PC? In this guide, we will discuss all the ways to free up hard drive space in Windows 10.
You can free up gigabytes (GB) disk space on your computer, it's not hard at all. In this article, we list all possible ways free up space on your Windows 10 PC.
Here are 16 ways to free up disk space in Windows 10.
You know about it and have probably already done it. If not, remove unnecessary programs and applications immediately to free up disk space. Some of the programs can reserve GB of valuable disk space.
By going to the app Options» → « Applications» → « Applications and Features”, you can view the used disk space, applications and programs. You can also uninstall apps and programs directly from this page.
You may want to consider removing not-so-useful installed apps to free up disk space in Windows 10. Refer to our Windows 10 guide for instructions.
2. Turn off hibernation to free up disk space
Before you start, let's be clear that we only suggest disabling the hibernation feature if you don't use it or don't know what the sleep feature is.
The hibernation feature, when enabled, creates a file hiberfil.sys, which takes up the amount of RAM on your PC. For example, if your computer is equipped with 8 GB RAM, the sleep function takes about 7 GB disk space, a decent size, isn't it.
Keep in mind that the feature is enabled by default in Windows 10, but it is not added to the Start Menu by default. So make sure it's disabled if you're not using it.
Here's how to turn off the hibernation feature.
Step 1: Open command prompt as administrator by typing cmd in the search box "Start / taskbar", click right click mouse element "Command line" and select "Run as administrator".
Step 2: At an elevated command prompt, type:
and press the key Enter to disable the hibernation feature and free up space.
You can use instead command line - PowerShell
3. Disable or delete system restore points
System restore points come in handy if you want to restore your Windows 10 PC to more early date, to fix possible problems. Depending on the number of restore points and the allocated space for the Create System Restore Point feature, this takes up GB of disk space. Again, disabling System Restore is not recommended, especially if you know how to use it!
But there is one point, you can delete all restore points except the last one if you don't want to disable this feature. There are also ways to remove separate points recovery.
Here's how to disable the System Restore feature.
Step 1: In the search box Start / Taskbar enter and press the key Enter.
Step 2: Go to the tab "System Protection". In chapter "Protection Options" select the drive and click the button "Tune".
Step 3: In the dialog that appears, select and click the button "Apply".
Repeat steps 2 and 3 for other drives to completely disable System Restore for all drives and free up disk space in Windows 10.
4. Empty trash
You probably know that when you delete a file in Windows 10 by selecting the file and then pressing the Delete key, the file is moved to the trash. While the file is in the Recycle Bin, it continues to take up disk space. You can recover valuable disk space by allocating less disk space to the Recycle Bin and deleting all files from the Recycle Bin.
If you often use a combination Shift keys+ Del to delete files without moving the files to the Recycle Bin, you should probably disable the Recycle Bin. We also recommend setting Windows 10 to automatic deletion old files from the trash.
Like the old versions software, old drivers are not needed and take up disk space. Luckily, Windows 10 makes it easy for you to uninstall old device drivers. Please see our instructions for removing old device drivers in the Windows 10 guide for step by step instructions.
Step 1: open This computer. Right-click on the drive where Windows 10 is installed, and then click "Properties".
Step 2: Click the button "Disk Cleanup".
Step 3: In the next dialog box, click " Clear system files» .
Step 4: When you see the results, check the box next to "Device Driver Packages" and press the button "OK" to remove the Driver Pack files.
6. Delete Windows.old folder
If you recently upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7/8.1 or upgraded to latest version Windows 10 you will most likely have a folder called Windows.old in your root directory system disk.
The Windows.old folder contains data from previous Windows versions and takes at least 10 GB disk space. If you are sure that you do not need data from previous Windows installations, you must delete the Windows.old folder to free up a significant amount of disk space.
10. Deleting unused user accounts
A new user account usually takes up very little disk space. Depending on the number of files and size, a user account can take up several MB or GB of disk space.
In short, if you have an unused user account on your PC, you can delete it, although you may gain very little space by doing so. You can always create a new account when you need it. To delete an account, go to "Options"→ "Accounts" → "Family and other people". Select an unnecessary account and click the button "Delete".
Drive compression is probably not great a good idea, especially if you don't want to slow down overall performance. However, if you are running out of space, you can do this to free up some space.
12. Find large files and delete them if you don't need them.
Find large files pretty simple. Learn how to find large files in Windows 10 for step by step instructions. Delete large files as well as small files that you no longer need.
Step 1: Open File Explorer. Navigate to the drive or folder where you want to search for large files.
Step 2: Click on the search field to see the tab "Search".
Step 3: Click the Search tab to view all search options.
Step 4: Click "The size", and then select one of the filters. As you can see, there are seven filters in total: Empty (0K), Tiny (0-10V), Small (10-100K), Medium (100K - 1MB), Large (1-16MB) , Huge (16 - 128 MB), Giant (> 128 MB).
If you select the Giant (> 128 MB) filter, File Explorer will automatically search for all files larger than 128 MB.
What if you want to search for all files larger than 500 MB? Just. In the search field, enter size:> 500 MB to view all files larger than 500 MB. The same way, use size:> 1 GB to find all files larger than 1 GB.
Finally, to find all files larger than 1 GB but less 5 GB(you can set any size), just type in the search box size:>500MB<5GB . Of course you can change these values!
Delivery Optimization files are files that have been previously downloaded to your computer. You can remove these files to free up disk space in Windows 10. To remove Delivery Optimization files:
Step 1: open This computer. Right click on the drive where Windows 10 is installed and then click "Properties".
Step 2: Click the button "Disk Cleanup".
Step 3: When you see the results, check the box "Delivery Optimization Files" and press the button "OK" to remove delivery optimization files.
Temporary files that applications do not use can also be deleted. Here's how to do it.
Step 1: Open the app "Options". Go to section System → storage.
Step 3: Select Delete temporary files not used by my applications.
Make sure no other options are selected, and then click "Clear Now". After a few seconds, you will see how much space you recovered by deleting temporary files not used by applications. As you can see in the picture above, we got about 2.3 GB of disk space.
15. Remove duplicate files and folders
Finding duplicate files on your computer is not an easy task, but there are programs that can help you find and remove duplicate files and folders. We offer a program dupeGuru to find and remove duplicate files.
16. Use an external drive or a cloud service
Last but not least: You can move photos and videos to an external drive or cloud service to free up disk space with Windows 10.
Among the notable innovations of the latest Microsoft operating system, it should be noted the built-in utility for visually evaluating disk space with a cleaning function by forces. True, it does not please with functionality, but the very fact of the appearance of useful tools suggests that developers from Redmond periodically listen to the wishes of users. The popular, alas, which does not have the support of "dozens", was replaced by a system analyzer " storage", which will be discussed in today's publication.
To open it, in the menu " Start"find" Settings" → "System" → search section " storage" (screenshot). A more time-saving option is to type the name of the analyzer in the search box next to the "Start" button.
We will see a list of disk partitions and connected storage devices. For each section, data on the total and occupied volume are presented. By clicking on the corresponding section, you can get information about the disk space occupied by various categories of files.
Overview of the features of the "Storage" utility
- The first item on the system disk partition is " System and Reserved". Judging by the screenshot, there is minimal information about individual system files. The only useful option is " System Recovery Management", which opens the system properties window with settings for its "rollback" to one of the .
- Applet " Applications and games"provides a primitive uninstaller for existing software that does not involve the removal of universal software. But there is a search through disks and sorting by size of additional system components (applications).
- Separate categories are " The documents", "Images", "Music", "Video recordings", "Desktop", however, the regular disk space analyzer does not allow sorting them by size. When you click on the detailed view button, the system transfers them to the appropriate folders inside Windows Explorer for manual deletion of irrelevant files.
- Applet " Temporary files"offering" Deleting temporary files", unfortunately, does not provide extended information about which files will disappear. Therefore, it is better not to use this option, " not to be excruciatingly painful"for the annihilation (destruction) of something necessary.
- The most demanded item of the "Storage" functionality should be considered the applet " Other". Here, in order of dimension, folders with files that are not assigned to all the categories mentioned are displayed. Files of these categories are stored in user profile folders or specially created directories on non-system disk partitions. Of course, through Explorer, you can easily get rid of weighty files that have become superfluous in system.
Summing up, I would like to say that the integrated disk space analyzer in Windows 10 "storage"is very far from perfect and inferior to most specialized programs both in functionality and in the convenience of submitting data. Thus, the new OS has acquired a good simulator for computer beginners, with ample opportunities for upgrading.
Dmitry dmitry_spb Evdokimov
It reads that there must be at least free space on the system partition of the disk 15%
from its full volume so that the Windows system can function fully - without freezes and braking. Now new hard drives are rarely seen with a volume of less 500 GB, therefore, when partitioning a hard disk into sections, you should not infringe on the system.
The system partition can be safely given order 100 GB. This volume is more than enough for the needs of Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, while there will be no need to constantly clean folders Temp and restrict the system in space to create restore points.
How can I find out which files are taking up a lot of disk space on my computer?
But if you store user files on the system disk - huge music collections, HD videos, voluminous software distributions - or install modern resource-intensive games on the system disk, eventually even 100 GB may not be enough. If Windows gives a message about the lack of space on the system drive, it's time (following the cleaning of folders Temp, of course) to analyze the disk space occupied by the computer.
You can clean up your computer by clearing the disk of unnecessary files using Windows Explorer or a file manager. But this is an effective method under one condition - if it is definitely known where and what weighty files can litter the system disk space. Otherwise, it is better to resort to the help of special programs - disk space analyzers. This type of program scans computer disks and presents the user with data on all the files he has in a convenient visual and tabular display. Among the popular disk space analyzers, one can note such programs as: WinDirStat, Scanner, TreeSize Pro. Recently, you can also find files on your computer that are irrationally taking up disk space using the popular system cleaning program -.
Many people know the free CCleaner program as an effective tool for cleaning temporary files, Internet cache, system registry and other system junk. FROM 5th version of the CCleaner program has somewhat changed in appearance, and now it matches the design Metro (Modern UI) Windows 8/8.1. But the changes in CCleaner have affected not only the appearance of the program, the popular cleaner has the functions of analyzing disk space and searching for duplicate files.
Disk analysis with CCleaner
The functionality of disk analysis in CCleaner, by and large, is in no way inferior to similar features that are implemented in individual programs, in particular, in those mentioned above. In CCleaner, you can graphically and informationally get a report on the use of computer disk partitions - both system and non-system. CCleaner presents the files on the computer by their separate categories - video, music, pictures, documents, archives, e-mail, other files.
In the program window, select a section "Service" and go to tab "Disk Analysis". By default, only the main categories of files will be selected for analysis. Optionally, you can add archive and email files. Select computer disk C , D , E etc. - and wait "Analysis".
CCleaner allows you to sort all categories of files or each category separately by size. This will give you an idea of which specific files take up the most space on a particular partition of the disk.
By clicking on the corresponding sorting criterion in the table of contents, the analysis results can also be sorted by file name, their type (format), and location path.
At the top left, we can see a pie chart with a visual representation of the analysis of occupied space by individual file categories.
Weighty files can be deleted from the system disk or transferred to a non-system one. In the results of the analysis of disk space, select the desired file, call the context menu and click "Open Folder".
A system explorer window will open, where we can remove the file from the system disk or delete it permanently.
Finding duplicate files with CCleaner
CCleaner is now able to find duplicate files. To start searching for duplicate files in a section "Service" open the tab "Search for duplicates". In order not to be distracted by lightweight files that will not particularly affect the release of disk space, you can include a filter in the duplicate search criteria that sets the minimum size of the files you are looking for.
When deleting duplicate files, you need to be extremely careful. You should not delete duplicate system files, as well as duplicate working files of individual programs. CCleaner, as well as similar programs that can search your computer for duplicate files, look for files with identical names. And the working files of the system and programs can have identical technical names, but be located in different folders (folders of their programs) and, accordingly, serve the purposes of different programs. Therefore, you should not delete such duplicates. Yes, and there will be no serious release of disk space when deleting a lightweight configuration file. It is better to get rid of duplicates if these are distributions of operating systems, videos and other weighty files.
You can delete duplicate files found by CCleaner in the same way as in the results of disk space analysis.
On the selected file, we call the context menu and select the option to open in a folder.
Missing in earlier versions of Windows and only introduced in Windows 10 standard tool for analyzing computer disk space, alas, did not adopt the capabilities of numerous third-party software for these purposes. How many good ideas could be borrowed from third-party disk space analyzers like WinDirStat, sequoia view, or Xinorbis. But Microsoft seems to have decided that the best example for inheritance would be a mini-summary of memory map data storage in mobile devices. How the regular disk space analyzer works as part of Windows 10, can it be considered as a full-fledged tool for periodically clearing space on the computer's disk - we will deal with these issues below.
The main task of programs for analyzing computer disk space is to provide the user with a summary of the files stored on the computer in a convenient format. Ideally, such a summary should include a selection of data on disk partitions, folders, categories and types of files, the chronology of the appearance of files and their weight. Sorting files according to all these criteria will provide an opportunity to periodically conduct a thorough analysis of the contents of the computer and get rid of unnecessary data. Sampling by the weight of files on a particular disk partition will allow you to quickly free up disk space if necessary. By sorting the files by their weight, you can get rid of the heaviest of them, thereby freeing up disk space for other, more important data.
The disk space analysis function is located in the standard Metro setup application "Options».
In chapter "System"
The lower part of the "Storage" window of Windows 10 is reserved for assigning the default storage location for certain categories of files, and the upper one is the same regular computer disk space analyzer. By selecting one of the disk partitions or a connected external storage device, we will see a summary similar to the one presented according to the data of memory cards in mobile devices. At the top of the window there will be a visual scale of the fullness of disk partitions and drives, along with data on the total and actually used disk space in gigabytes. Below we will find the space occupied by certain categories of data, such as: system files, installed applications and games, documents, images, videos, music, mail, temporary and other files.
But this is where the convenience of a standard disk space analyzer, alas, ends. With its help, we will not get detailed information on the space occupied by individual folders and files, we will not build a list, in particular, by the criterion of file size. To deal with such subtleties, Windows 10 sends to the system explorer. Folder paths that are displayed in the standard analyzer will open in Windows Explorer on click, where files in individual folders can be sorted by size by choosing to display them as a table.
But if there are many subfolders in a folder, it will not be possible to quickly arrange data by their size, because the size of the folders is not displayed in the system explorer. You will have to open each subfolder manually, build a list of files by size, and only then view the files that claim to be deleted.
With the category of data on the system partition of drive C "System and Reserved" the situation is even more complicated.
Here we will simply see information about how much space individual system data take up, but we will not even get links to their opening path in the system explorer. So, apparently, the system is protected from newcomers. The only button here is "Manage System Restore", leading to the system properties section, where, as part of working with restore points, you can delete them (except for the last one) in order to free up some small amount.
Of the sensible capabilities of the regular Windows 10 disk space analyzer, in principle, only two can be noted - a convenient way to clean up temporary files and uninstall applications. The first option is available when you select the data category "Temporary files". Pushing a button "Delete temporary files", we will quickly get rid of those, in particular, those stored in the Temp folders on the system disk, where impressive amounts of unnecessary data sometimes accumulate.
Another notable opportunity to free up disk space will open up to us when choosing a category "Apps and Games". Here, in a single summary, we find the ability to sort all desktop programs, games, Metro applications installed in the system by their size. Plus, this category of data is equipped with an uninstaller for the quick removal of unused programs, games and applications. Third-party Metro apps installed from the Windows Store do not have to be uninstalled, they can simply be moved to another location on the computer if the goal is to clear only the system partition of the disk.
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Thanks to the simplicity and intuitiveness of the organization and interface, the regular Windows 10 disk space analyzer could be a good tool for beginners, if it were at least a little more thoughtful. It is suitable for clearing the system partition of the disk, if we are dealing with a classic situation of cluttered user profile ("Downloads", "Video", "Music", "Images", etc.). But for general cleaning in the computer - a thorough clearing of the entire disk space - third-party programs designed specifically for these purposes are more suitable. These are, in particular, those programs that are mentioned at the beginning of the article, as well as individual functions as part of software assemblies for comprehensive computer care (such as) or for working with a hard drive (such as HDTune).
