If you’re finding that you’re running low on storage space on yourWindowsmachine there are several ways you may clean things up to free up room.
Obviously, you could always purchase anadditional driveto add more space, but if that’s not an option then there are other things you’re able to do.
Start with Disk Cleanup
Windows has a tool built into it called Disk Cleanup. you’re able to use this tool to remove files you’ve downloaded, temporary error reports, temporary internet files and more.
To use Disk Cleanup, follow these steps:
Cleaning up system files can remove leftover Windows update files, Microsoft Defender files, upgrade logs and more.
Empty your recycle bin
If you’ve been deleting files from your machine in an effort to free up space then one thing you might have overlooked is your recycle bin.
When you delete files in Windows they’re not fully deleted but are instead put into your recycle bin. This is ideal if you need to recover any of the files you might have accidentally deleted, but files in your recycle bin are still taking up space on your machine. You may well find that the recycle bin is stuffed full of large files that are still clogging up your machine even if you thought you’d got rid of them.
To empty your recycle bin, right-click on it and click “empty recycle bin”.
If you’d like to be a bit more careful then right-click the bin and click open. Then you can see all the files you’ve deleted previously and check you’re happy before you fully delete them forever.
Change your recycle bin settings
Once you’ve emptied the bin, it might also pay to change the recycle bin settings. As standard Windows reserves a certain amount of space for files in the bin. When you reach the maximum space Windows will start deleting older files in the bin.
It’s possible to adjust the amount of space the recycle bin is capable of holding and therefore stop it from clogging up your drive in future.
To do this:
Obviously, this move may mean that you have no way to recover files when you delete them. So be careful with these settings.
Remove unused apps
If you’ve been using your Windows machine for some time then the chances are you’ve got a lot of programs installed, some of which you probably don’t need anymore. You might well find some apps that you don’t use regularly, haven’t used for a long time or are just taking up so much space that they need to go.
One step to free up space on your Windows machine is to uninstall apps and programs. To do this follow these steps:
Move files to an external drive
One alternative to deleting files is to move them to another drive. It might be a bit obvious but you can use anexternal SSD to back up filesand remove them from your Windows machine.
This requires an additional purchase, but it pays to back up files anyway and storing might be better than deleting.
Most drives of this sort only require you to connect the drive to your PC with a USB cable and then simply move the files you want to keep from your Windows machine to the external drive.
Alternatively, with the two locations open in different instances of file manager you can simply drag the files from one drive to the other.
