Free Up Disk Space To Get Maximum Performance
What is Taking up Hard Drive Space?
Unless you pay close attention, you might be surprised at how space fills up. The main C: drive is usually home to the Windows operating system. If you installed Windows in C this is also where your Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music, and Videos folders live.
You can see where the problem lies – the OS takes up plenty of space with updates and system files while you install programs and accumulate files of your own. This is why you need disk cleanup in Windows 10.
In time, you find out that your hard drive is full, and you need to clear space on your hard drive. Before you learn how to clean the hard drive, you need to see what is taking up space on your hard drive.
Instead of wasting time going through folders one by one, nail down where your files tend to accumulate.
There are two ways to go about this. The most convenient is through Windows built-in storage settings or a third-party app such as WinDirStat.
Using Windows Settings
Navigate to Settings > System > Storage to see a breakdown of your disk space usage. Select a category to delete.
Using WinDirStat
This nifty program provides a visual representation of space used, arranged according to what is taking up space on your hard drive. Click on the colored rectangles to see the files, and delete them straight from inside the program. Just be sure you know what you are deleting, and steer clear of system files!
Quick Tips to Free up Disk Space on PC
Use the Disk Cleanup Utility:
Navigate to This PC, right-click on it, select Properties and then select Disk Cleanup. Here, you can select folders to clear, and there may also be an option for deleting system files. This is the safest method to free space on your hard drive and empties the Recycle Bin as well.
Delete Unnecessary Programs
Using the Control Panel, or from Settings > Apps > Under Apps & Features. Here, you can sort apps by size, name, or install date. Select the app you want to get rid of and click on the uninstall button.
Delete Temporary (temp) Files
Open Settings > System > Storage. The app categorizes what is taking up hard drive space automatically. Click on the Temporary files tile, and the app scans and lists which temp files are safe for deletion. Carefully check the boxes for what to delete and click on “Remove files.”
Clear Your Browser’s Cache
For Chrome, simply press Ctrl + Shift + Del, or open the menu from the three dots on the top right corner. Click on More Tools > Clear browsing data to view what to delete.
Check Your Downloads Folder
Plenty of browsers, torrent clients, and other programs save files to the Downloads folder by default.
In the same vein, check other user folders (Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music) for unnecessary files such as multiple copies of the same file. If you are unsure what to delete, sort files by date modified, or by size. You might want to keep the newest version or delete large older files.
If you play games on your PC, try deleting some saved files to free space on your hard drive. Most save files can be found in Documents or in the Program Files where the game data is stored, usually in a folder named ‘save files’.
When all else fails, move files to a portable storage device such as a memory stick, SD card, etc. Make sure the files you move don’t link to other projects, which may result in missing objects, etc.
Enjoy
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