Hard drives are getting bigger and bigger, but somehow they always seem to fill up. This is especially true if you're using an SSD (Solid State Drive), which offers much less hard drive space than traditional mechanical hard drives.
If you're really bleeding for some free hard drive space, these tricks should help you free up space for important files and programs by removing the unimportant files/programs that are filling up your hard drive.
Run Disk Cleanup
Windows includes a built-in tool that deletes temporary files and other unimportant data. To access it, right-click one of your hard drives in the Computer window and select Properties.
(Alternatively, you can search for Disk Cleanup in the Start Menu.)
Click the Disk Cleanup button in the disk properties window.
Select the file types you want to delete and click OK. This includes temporary files, log files, files in the Recycle Bin, and other non-important files.
You can also clean up system files, which are not listed here. Click the Clean up system files button if you also want to delete system files.
Once you do, you can click the More Options button and use the Clean up button under System Restore and Shadow Copies to delete system restore data. This button deletes everything except the most recent restore, so make sure computer is working properly before using it – you won’t be able to use older system restore points.
Uninstall space-consuming apps
Uninstalling programs will free up space, but some programs use very little space. From the Programs and Features control panel, you can click the Size column to see how much space each program installed on your computer is using. The easiest way to get there is to search for “Uninstall programs” in the Start Menu.
If you don't see this column, click the options button in the upper-right corner of the list and select Details view. Note that this isn't always accurate—some programs don't report how much space they're using. A program might be using a lot of space, but it might not have any information in the Size column.
You may want to use a third-party uninstaller, such as Revo Uninstaller, to make sure all leftover files are deleted and you're not wasting space.
If you're using Windows 10, you can also open the new PC Settings and go to System -> Apps & Features.
This will allow you to remove either Windows Store apps or regular apps, and should also work on a tablet. You can, of course, open Uninstall Programs in the old Control Panel if you prefer.
Analyze disk space
To find out exactly what's using up space on your hard drive, you can use a hard drive analyzer program. These applications scan your hard drive and show you exactly which files and folders are taking up the most space. We've covered the 10 best tools for analyzing hard drive space, but if you're looking to get started, try WinDirStat (download from Ninite).
After scanning your system, WinDirStat shows you exactly which folders, file types, and files are using the most space. Make sure you don't delete important system files—only delete personal data. If you see a program's folder in your Programs folder using up a lot of space, you can uninstall the program—WinDirStat can tell you how much space a program is using, even if the Programs and Features Control Panel isn't there.
Clean Temporary Files
Windows’ Disk Cleanup tool is useful, but it doesn’t delete temporary files used by other programs. For example, it won’t be able to delete Firefox or Chrome, which can use up gigabytes of hard drive space. (Browser caches use hard drive space to save you time when accessing web pages in the future, but that’s little comfort if you need hard drive space now.)
For more aggressive temporary and unused file cleaning, try CCleaner, which you can download here. CCleaner cleans up junk files from a variety of programs and also cleans up Windows files that Disk Cleanup won't touch.
Find duplicate files
You can use a duplicate file detection application to scan your hard drive for duplicate files, which are unnecessary and can be deleted. We've covered using VisiPics to eliminate duplicate images and also created a comprehensive guide to finding and deleting duplicate files in Windows using free tools.
Or if you don't mind spending a few dollars, you can use Duplicate Cleaner Pro, which not only has a nicer interface, but also has a lot of extra features to help you find and delete duplicate files.
Reduce the amount of space used for system restore
If System Restore is eating up a lot of hard drive space for restore points, you can reduce the amount of hard drive space allocated to System Restore. The trade-off is that you will have fewer restore points to restore system from and fewer previous copies of files to restore. If these features are less important to you than the hard drive space they use, go ahead and free up a few gigabytes by reducing the amount of space System Restore uses.
Nuclear Options
These tricks will certainly free up some space, but they will disable important Windows features. We don't recommend any of them, but if you're in desperate need of disk space, they might help:
- Disable Hibernation – When you hibernate your system, it saves the contents of RAM to your hard drive. This allows you to save the state without using any power – the next time you boot your computer, you’ll be right back where you left off. Windows saves the contents of RAM to the C:\hiberfil.sys file. To save hard drive space, you can disable hibernation completely, which removes the file.
- Disable System Restore – If reducing the size of the space System Restore isn't good enough for you, you can disable System Restore completely.
