Free Up Hard Disk Space in Windows 10<\/h2>\nUsing Disk Cleanup<\/h3>\n
Start Disk Cleanup ( To start Disk Cleanup with all checkboxes enabled already, use the Disk Cleanup lists the following items:<\/p>\n Some of the cleanup options may not exist in your system depending upon the Operating System you\u2019re using. Out of the above items, the Previous Windows installation(s), Delivery optimization files<\/strong>, and Windows Update Cleanup<\/strong> consume the most amount of disk space.<\/p>\n With the items enabled, click OK to start the cleanup.<\/p>\n After running Disk Cleanup, you may use the Driver Store Explorer<\/a> tool to remove old driver packages which Disk Cleanup failed to remove.<\/em><\/p>\n You can also use Storage Sense or Storage Settings<\/a> in Windows 10 to clean up temporary files.<\/p>\n Open Settings \u2192 System \u2192 Storage \u2192 Temporary files<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Every item you saw in the Disk Cleanup window is shown in the Storage Settings page. Microsoft may replace Disk Cleanup with Storage Settings in the future.<\/p>\n The Storage Settings page also has options to empty the Recycle Bin and your Downloads folder at regular intervals.<\/p>\n To clean up the superseded Windows Updates stored in the WinSxS folder<\/a> selectively (without using Disk Cleanup or Storage Settings), open an elevated Command Prompt<\/a> and run this command:<\/p>\n The above command-line cleans up the superseded components and reduces the size of the component store. Note that you can\u2019t uninstall updates<\/a> after using DISM with this command-line parameter.<\/p>\n Note:<\/strong> The above command-line does exactly the same as selecting the Windows Update Cleanup<\/a> entry in the Disk Cleanup and Storage Settings. The above DISM command-line is only a command-line alternative. This freed up Disk Cleanup and Storage Sense scan only the predefined set of locations. However, you may have many large files occupying your hard drive in various folder locations. Earlier we’ve seen how to use Storage Settings or the WinDirStat<\/a> utility to find huge files lurking in your hard disk.<\/p>\n There is another excellent visualizer tool similar to WinDirStat, named WizTree. WizTree is super-fast as it uses the NTFS Master File Table (MFT) to get the list of files and their sizes. The master file table (MFT) is a database in which information about every file and directory on an NTFS volume is stored.<\/p>\n The Visual Treemap view allows you to spot large files and large collections of smaller files at a glance. All you need to do is click or double-click on the bigger blocks so that the file is selected in the Tree View automatically. The filename is shown in the status bar, as well.<\/p>\n On my system, the most significant blocks shown in the Visual Treemap were the Virtual Disk Image (.vdi) files. Oracle Virtualbox VM creates VDI files for each Operating System you install on it. A long time back, I had tested Oracle Virtualbox VM and later uninstalled it as I switched to Hyper-V. However, as I didn’t remove those virtual machines before uninstalling Oracle Virtualbox, the virtual disks (.vdi) are still lying around in the hard disk. I reinstalled Oracle VirtualBox and properly removed the guest Operating Systems this time.<\/p>\n Thanks to WizTree; I could free up 18 GB of disk space in no time!<\/p>\n Duplicate files are the silent consumers of disk space. The redundant files not only occupy the valuable disk space, but also confuse the user and make it harder for him to manage the file system effectively.<\/p>\n I’ve written a comprehensive guide on how to find and delete duplicate files in your system, using various third-party tools. Check out the article Find and Delete Duplicate Files and Photos in Windows<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Check out the article Cleanup Obsolete .MSI and .MSP files in the Installer Folder<\/a>\u00a0for more info.<\/p>\n You can clear individual System Restore points<\/a>, clear everything<\/a>, or clear all Restore Points except the most recent<\/a> one using the Disk Cleanup’s More Options<\/strong> tab. As per WizTree, System Restore (the System Volume Information<\/a> folder) utilizes around If your hard disk capacity is low, you can lower the disk space allotted<\/a> for System Restore and Volume Shadow Copy.<\/p>\n Other than this, you can clear the browser cache in the respective web browser you’re using. Once done, refresh the WizTree dashboard and spot the next largest file block in the Visual Tree View, and reclaim every bit of storage space as possible.<\/p>\n The hibernation file ( In Windows 10 a full hibernation file occupies disk space that equals to Clearing the browser cache once in a while will free up hundreds of megabytes to a few gigabytes of disk space. In addition to the temporary internet files cache, the Service Worker files may occupy gigabytes of disk space.<\/p>\n Google Chrome stores the service workers in the following folder:<\/p>\n Clearing them occasionally can free up huge disk space.<\/p>\n Also, check out the File System and LocalStorage folders as well:<\/p>\n For example, when you download files from websites like Note that clearing the cache<\/a> via Google Chrome settings may not clear the To remove the local storage and service workers on a per-website basis, open that particular site. Open Developer Tools (F12)<\/p>\n In the Application tab, you can see the total size consumed by local storage, IndexedDB, and Service Workers by that website.<\/p>\n You may also uninstall unused apps and pre-installed apps<\/a> via Apps & Features, delete unused or old user profiles<\/a> to save more space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"cleanmgr.exe<\/code>) as administrator, and enable all the checkboxes.<\/p>\ncleanmgr.exe \/LOWDISK<\/code> command-line. See the article Start Disk Cleanup With All Checkbox Options Enabled by Default<\/a>\u00a0for more information.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"free](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/free-disk-space-cleanmgr-1.png\")
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%TEMP%<\/code> folder that have been accessed with the last 7 days<\/a>.<\/li>\nDownloads<\/code> folder by unchecking it from the list. See also Stop Disk Cleanup and Storage Sense from Emptying your Downloads folder<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n![\"driverstore](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/printer-driver-store-explorer-delete-package.png\")
<\/p>\nUsing Storage Sense<\/h3>\n
![\"free](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/free-disk-space-storage-settings-1.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"windows](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/storage-settings-cleanup-options.png\")
<\/p>\nCleanup superseded Updates (WinSxS folder)<\/h3>\n
DISM.exe \/online \/Cleanup-Image \/StartComponentCleanup<\/pre>\n
![\"kb3194798](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/wu-cleanupo-399tb-4.png\")
<\/p>\n4.29 GB<\/code> of disk space in my case.<\/p>\nUsing a visualizer tool to find the major consumers of disk space<\/h3>\n
![\"free](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/wiztree-visualize-drive-1.png\")
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\n![\"free](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/wiztree-visualize-drive-2.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"free](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/wiztree-visualize-drive-3.png\")
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![\"free](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/treesize-visual-map-3d.png\")
<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nFind and Delete duplicate files<\/h3>\n
![\"find](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/find-duplicate-files-auslogics-0.png\")
<\/p>\nDelete unused Windows Installer files<\/h3>\n
Windows\\Installer<\/code> folder contains many .msi and .msp files, and some of which may be orphaned. You can clear them using PatchCleaner.<\/p>\n![\"patchcleaner](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/installer-folder-patch-cleaner-2.png\")
<\/p>\nDelete Old System Restore Points<\/h3>\n
4.6 GB<\/code> of disk space. And the figure matches more or less with what the System Restore window (systempropertiesprotection.exe<\/code>) reports.<\/p>\n![\"free](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/system-restore-used-space.png\")
<\/p>\nDisable Hibernation<\/h3>\n
hiberfil.sys<\/code>) consumes huge disk space on the system partition. You can choose to disable the hibernate feature, or reduce the hibernation file size by disabling hibernation while keeping fast startup<\/a> enabled.<\/p>\n![\"reduced](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/hiberfile-size-1.png\")
40%<\/code> of memory installed on the system. For example, if you have 16 GB RAM installed, hiberfil.sys<\/code> takes 6.4 GB of disk space on the system drive. Whereas the reduced hibernation<\/a> (Hibernation disabled; Fast Startup enabled) file uses only disk space that’s equal to 20%<\/code> of physical memory.<\/p>\nClear Browser Cache<\/h3>\n
%LOCALAPPDATA%\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data\\{profile name}\\Service Worker<\/pre>\n%LOCALAPPDATA%\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data\\{profile name}\\File System\r\n\r\n%LOCALAPPDATA%\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data\\{profile name}\\Local Storage<\/pre>\nmega.nz<\/code>, it downloads the file to the File System directory, and then it’s copied to the Downloads folder. If you download a 500 MB file, it occupies 1000 MB of hard disk space (until Chrome clears it automatically.)\u00a0So, you may want to clean up the File System folder every once in a while.<\/p>\nService Worker<\/code> , LocalStorage<\/code>, and the File System<\/code> folders.<\/p>\n![\"chrome](\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/chrome-storage-dev-tools.png\")
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