The disk space requirements for Windows 10 are large, with a minimum requirement of 16 GB for the 32-bit version and 20 GB for the 64-bit version.
I mention large because if you compare the space required by Microsoft's operating system with that of MacOS or Ubuntu, the differences in space are also large, when they require 9 and 5 GB respectively.
Of course, with today's capacities, this is not a problem, especially if you are using xTB drives. However, if your drive is a 32 or 64 GB SSD, you don't have that much room to waste.
Below we will see what features Windows 10 has to reduce the footprint of your operating system.
Windows 10 Storage Space
With the Creators Update, Windows 10 got a new automatic cleanup feature called Storage Sense. It doesn't do anything new, but it comes as a quality upgrade that essentially relieves you of the responsibility of organizing and deleting your files. To enable the feature:
Open the “Settings” app.
From System – Storage – Storage
Activate the option
Compact operating system
Compact OS is a Windows 10 feature that uses compression to reduce the overall space of system files and Windows Store apps. When you enable it, it will take a few minutes for everything to be compressed. Once the compression is complete, you will see that you have saved between 1 and 7 GB.
Caution Compact OS requires a little more RAM when accessing system files due to decompression.
NTFS compression
Did you know that Windows can selectively compress individual files and folders while still allowing you to use them normally? The feature is called NTFS Compression, and it can be a much better option than using an application like 7-Zip to compress and decompress the files you choose.
From File Explorer (Windows + E) open any folder.
Right-click the file or folder you want to compress and select Properties.
On the General tab, click Advanced...
Check the box to compress contents to save space on your disk.
Caution: NTFS compression will use more CPU when files and folders are used, because they will need to be decompressed.
However, you can use NTFS compression for files that you rarely use (backup files, etc.).
Tip: Avoid compressing audio and video files because they are already compressed and also do not use NTFS compression for system files or folders!
Apps and media on external storage
The first major update to Windows 10 also brought the ability to install Windows Store apps on external storage devices, such as USB, SD cards, and external data drives.
It also works with multimedia files, such as images, audio, videos, etc. This can help you free up a lot of space on your main drive. But before you do anything, make sure you have connected an external storage device and set up redirection for the above files:
From the “Settings” app.
System – Storage – Storage settings.
Choose where you want new content to be saved, and click Apply to save your changes.
OneDrive Cloud
You probably don't use OneDrive, since there are so many people who don't. In case you're thinking about it, Microsoft offers a free plan with a total capacity of 5 GB to store your files. 
Run the OneDrive application.
In the system tray, right-click the OneDrive icon and select Settings.
On the Account tab, click Folder Options.
Select the folders you don't want to sync and click OK.
Windows 10 Reserved Spaces
There are three important features in Windows 10 that take up large chunks of your disk space for data storage: hibernation, system restore, and the page file. The last one is best left untouched. Let's see what we can do with the first two.
Hibernation
It saves a snapshot of your current state, in a file called hiberfil.sys, and then suspends the display, ports, data drive, and RAM. This feature is useful when you want to step away from your computer for a few hours without shutting down everything. Resuming from hibernation is much faster than a normal startup
But the hiberfil.sys file is quite large – by default. In total, it reaches 75 percent of the total RAM. So, if you have 4 GB of RAM, then the file will be 3 GB. This file is constantly present, and to get rid of it, you need to completely disable hibernation. But this way you lose the fast session recovery in Windows 10.
Press Win + X keys together and select Command Prompt as Administrator.
To disable hibernation, type: powercfg.exe /hibernate off
To enable hibernation, type: powercfg.exe /hibernate on
System Restore
There is no system recovery partition in Windows 10. System Restore is a feature that creates and saves snapshots of your entire system, which you can use to restore your system if something goes wrong.
The problem is that these snapshots take up a lot of space. Usually the space reserved is based on a percentage of your disk capacity. By default, Windows 10 reserves 15%. So for a 500 GB hard drive, this space amounts to 75 GB. You can of course reduce this percentage or even disable System Restore completely.
From the control panel, follow the steps shown in the images below
On the System Protection tab, click Configure…
You can turn off system protection. Otherwise, in the Disk space usage box, move the slider to the amount of space you want to reserve for System Restore.
Note: An average restore point requires about 600 MB. Set aside enough space for at least five restore points (3 GB minimum).
Disk Cleanup
Cleaning your disk once a month can help get rid of unnecessary files. You can run Disk Cleanup after every Windows Update.
When Windows updates, it keeps a snapshot of your system before the update in case something goes wrong and you want to restore your system. These snapshots can be huge.
Launch the Disk Cleanup app, by searching for “Disk Cleanup.”
Click Clean up system files.
Select the types of files you want to delete. You can choose to clean up Windows Update, temporary Internet files, temporary files, and the Recycle Bin. Just make sure the latest Windows Update doesn’t report any problems and that you don’t need anything from the Recycle Bin.
If there is another way that is not listed above, you can add it in the comments of the post.
