Nov 21, 2019 Steps to Delete Temporary Files in Windows 10/8/7 Step 1 – Take your cursor to the top right of your screen and click on ‘Search’. Go to settings and type Disk Cleanup in the search box.

  • The built-in disk cleaner utility can remove old Windows installation files after a feature update to free around tens of GBs of space on your PC. Just pull up the Start Menu and type Disk Cleanup.
  • Mar 04, 2016 To easily run the Disk Cleanup tool, launch File Explorer, select This PC, and select Local Disk (C:). To continue, select the Drive Tools Manage tab and click the Cleanup button, as shown in.
  • Smart Disk Cleanup provides a safe and easy way to clean up junk files, duplicates, and large files. In just a few minutes you can safely and easily free up GBs of disk space. Items cleaned with Smart Disk Cleanup: Duplicates - Unnecessary duplicate files can take up GBs of disk space.
How to perform disk cleanup on windows 10

Where Is Disk Cleanup On Windows 10

Are you running out of your Disk Space? Have you upgraded to Windows 10? Are you storing hundreds of HD quality movies, “n” number of high-resolution photos, thousands of songs then sure you would have already hit the upper limit of your disk space storage capacity? So, you would be worried how to clean disk space capacity in your Windows 10.

This is quite a common issue that almost everyone is facing in today’s digital world. Even if drives are bigger than earlier times and at a lesser price but still we keep running low on disk space. Moreover, with Microsoft’s aggressive update strategy and low requirements of Windows 10 system has enabled even the older machines that have less amount of space as compared to modern models to upgrade to Windows 10.

However, whatever may be the reason for you approaching the upper limit of your disk space capacity, your first step should not be to simply go and buy a new drive. Instead, your first approach should be to make optimum use of your disk space. This can be achieved by removing files, apps, and games that you are not using anymore.

Here are ways to restore your storage space back on your Windows 10 PC.

1. Delete older versions of Windows

Windows by default save the data from the older versions of Windows post up gradation. This is so as to facilitate you to get back to your older version whenever you feel to do so. But this old data utilizes a lot of space. Not only the older versions but Windows also automatically saves files while installing the latest Anniversary update. It is quite easy to delete these files. Here is how to do it:

  • Go to the Settings app.
  • Select Storage in System.
  • Select primary storage.
  • A list of different categories will be displayed with a list of space they are using.
  • Click on temporary files. Here mark the checkbox beside “Previous Versions of Windows” and click on Remove files.

2. Clean the Recycle Bin

Whenever you delete any file or folder or photos in your PC, they are deleted from that space but are stored in Recycle Bin in case if required again. However, they occupy your crucial disk space. To empty the Recycle Bin, simply

  • Right-click on your Recycle Bin.
  • A drop-down menu will be displayed. Click on Empty Recycle bin.
  • A dialogue box asking if you permanently wish to delete these items will be displayed on your screen
  • Click “Yes” to delete them permanently.

3. Clean the Update Cache

The copies of the Update installation files are stored in the Update Cache. In case, when you are forced to reapply an update, it can use the saved one. However, they take up space of your disk. In order to clean the disk space first stop the Windows Update Service:

Cleanup
  • Search Services in the taskbar.
  • Right click on it and a drop-down menu will be displayed.
  • Click on Run as an administrator.
  • From the list select Windows Update and right click on it.
  • On the displayed menu click on Stop.

We have successfully stopped the Windows Update Service. Now, we need to delete the files.

  • Now, Click Windows +R to open the run box.
  • Type C:WindowsSoftwareDistributionand press Enter.
  • You can delete everything displayed in the download folder.
  • Now, go back to services and re-enable the Windows Update.

This method also enables you to remove corrupt files.

4. Disable Hibernation

Hibernation allows you to conserve power when you are not using your Windows machine. Sleep also does that. But the difference in both is that Sleep mode saves all your open documents and running applications in RAM, while Hibernate saves it all to the hard disk. Hibernate thus, saves the content of your PC in the disk so that you can shut down your PC completely and still your current data will be safe. In spite of its good use, it consumes several gigabytes of space to save the content in RAM to the hiberfil.sys file on the hard drive. In fact, if you don’t use Hibernate mode simply delete it. As deleting it will by default also delete all the data that is saved from earlier hibernations.

To clean disk space, you need to disable hibernation to delete the hibernated data that is occupying space in your disk. To do so,

  • Open Start and search Command Prompt.
  • Right-click on it and select Run as an administrator.
  • Type on it powercfg /hibernate off
  • This will also turn off your ability to use Hibernation. However, when you have low space on your disk and you need space immediately, this is the good option.
  • However, if ever you wish to turn it on repeat the above steps and type exe -h on instead.

5. Delivery Optimization Files

Delivery Optimization is a new feature of Windows 10. It enables your device to pull updates from other machines nearby. The motto behind it is to deliver the updates faster. However, there are complains that it is using higher bandwidth and occupies a bigger chunk of memory.

The earlier files can be easily deleted and also disable this option so new files don’t keep on taking more space. Here is a step by step process to clean disk space:

  • In Windows taskbar go to Settings.
  • Click on Update & Security
  • Select Advanced Options.
  • Choose How Updates Are Delivered.
  • Turn it off.

Head to Start > Settings > Update & Security > Advanced Options > Choose How Updates Are Delivered. Once there, make sure the slider is set to the Off position.

Now to clean the space,

  • Search Disk Clean-up and open the app.
  • A dialogue box will be displayed asking you to select the drive you want to clean and click OK.
  • A list of files that can be removed will be displayed. Search for Delivery Optimization files in the list and check the box beside it. Click OK. Windows will automatically delete it.

6. OEM Recovery Partition

Windows 10 also has OEM Recovery Partition. They are not much required and so can be removed safely. But it requires creating a recovery drive. Creating a recovery drive implies the need of a USB stick.

In order to create a drive,

  • Type in the Taskbar – Create a Recovery Drive.

Follow the instructions as displayed on your screen. Insert a USB drive when asked. Once the process is finished, you’ll see the option to delete the recovery partition from your PC on the final screen. Click the link and choose Delete to proceed.

7. Recovery Partition

Once you off this option, you would neither be able to use the Windows 10’s recovery options nor will you be able to boot into the recovery environment to troubleshoot other aspects of the operating system. Moreover, before initiating this process, have the backup ready for all your data and even create a USB recovery drive.

Once you are done with it, you can start the process.

  • Search Command Prompt in the taskbar.
  • Right click on it and click on Run as administrator.
  • Type Diskpart and Press Enter.
  • Now type List disk and again press Enter.
  • Type Select disk _ (in blank write the number of the disk where your recovery partition is saved.) Then type List Volume.
  • A list of all the volumes on the disk will be displayed. Along with it, your recovery partition will also be displayed.
  • Now type Select Volume 3 (here I have written 3 as that is my recovery portion. You write your recovery portion number.)
  • Type Delete Volume and press Enter.

Unused apps and games

Many apps and games came preinstalled on your computer and you may not be using them all. Deleting such apps may clean disk space on your device. Or even games or apps that you may have installed and you don’t use them now. But they eat up a lot of storage place.

Here is a detailed process to remove them from your device:

  • Go to Settings.
  • Click on Apps.
  • Select Apps and Features.
  • Choose the game or app you wish to remove and click on Uninstall button.

Do this process for all the apps and games to clean disk space and you may have enough free space in your Windows 10 laptop.

This article introduces how to clean up disk in Windows 10 with native Disk Cleanup utility. Run Windows 10 Disk Cleanup via wizard and command line.

Content:

Most people encounter low disk space issue in Windows 10 laptop or desktop. Windows Updates, system log, temp, programs and many other types of files write into C drive continuously, so C drive becomes full sooner or later. If you replace disk with a new one, hard disk manufacturers will be very glad. When C drive runs out of space, firstly try to free up disk space with Windows 10 Disk Cleanup utility, then you can reclaim disk space by deleting junk files. If you cannot get enough free space, you can reallocate more space from other partitions.

1. About Windows 10 Disk Cleanup utility

Disk Cleanup is a Microsoft Windows computer native included maintenance utility that is used to free up disk space on hard disk drives. The utility is easy and fast, it searches and analyzes the hard drive for files that are no longer of any use, and then removes the unnecessary files safely. These unnecessary and junk files include Windows Updates, Temporary files, Logs, Cache, files in Recycle Bin, etc.

You can run Disk Cleanup in all Windows versions from XP, however, in some Windows version such as Server 2008 and 2012, Disk Cleanup is not enabled by default, so you need to manually install it. Starting with Windows 10 version 1803, Disk Cleanup are incorporated into Windows 10's Settings app, however, the standalone Disk Cleanup utility is still available.

2. Three ways to launch Disk Cleanup in Windows 10

Press Windows and R key on keyboard, type cleanmgr, and then click OK.

Select C: drive or other one that you want to clean up.

Open Windows File Explorer, right click C: drive and select Properties.

Search from task bar at bottom left. Type clean then Disk Cleanup is shown on the top.

Where do i find disk cleanup on windows 10

3. How to clean up disk in Windows 10 with wizard

When the Disk Cleanup window is opened, it is very easy to complete the next steps.

1. Click the check-boxes to select the files that you want to remove and click OK to begin. If you are not sure what is the meaning of the files, click it and you'll see corresponding description on the bottom.

2. Confirm this operation by clicking Delete Files.

After that, Disk Cleanup will begin deleting the unnecessary and junk files.

3. Repeat to Clean up system files.

4. How to run Disk Cleanup in Windows 10 via command line

There are 3 ways to clean up disk in Windows 10 with command line, select the one that fit for your needs.

Command with all files selected

  1. Press Windows and R together on the keyboard.
  2. Input cleanmgr /LOWDISK and press Enter.
  3. Disk Cleanup dialog box will pop up with all types of files selected by default, so you just need to click OK to confirm.

Clean up all junk files automatically

  1. Press Windows and R together on the keyboard.
  2. Input cleanmgr /VERYLOWDISK and press Enter.

Then Disk Cleanup will delete all junk files automatically and then show you a dialog box with result.

Clean up specified junk files automatically

  1. Press Windows and R together on the keyboard to open Run.
  2. Input cleanmgr /sageset:1 and press Enter. (You can specify the value from 0 to 65535).
  3. Disk Cleanup dialog box will pop up, select the files to delete and click OK.
  4. Press Windows and R together on the keyboard, input cleanmgr /sageset:1 and press Enter. Then the preselected junk files will be deleted without a result window.

In the future, you just need to run cleanmgr /sageset:1. If you want to delete different types of files, input cleanmgr /sageset:2 in step 2 and run cleanmgr /sageset:2 in step 4.

5. Additional options after cleaning up disk

If you did not get plenty of free space after running Disk Cleanup in Windows 10, the 3 methods below are very useful.

Move installed apps and games

When installing programs, many people use default settings to C: drive. The more you installed, the less space left. It's better to install programs to separated partition. Better than previous versions, Windows 10 can move these programs to other partition without reinstalling.

Steps to clean up C drive in Windows 10 by moving applications:

  1. Press Windows and X on keyboard, then click Settings > Apps > Apps & features
  2. Click an app or game.
  3. Click the Move bottom.
  4. Select the new location from the drop-down list.
  5. Click the Move button.
  6. Repeat the steps to move more items.

Save files to new location

Windows 10 has another new option to save new files of apps, documents, music, pictures, and videos to other place, steps:

  1. Press Windows and X on keyboard, then click Settings
  2. Click System> Storage.
  3. Click Change where new content is saved under More storage settings.
  4. Click the drop-down list to select new location and click Apply.

Disk Cleanup Windows 10 Stuck

Add more free space to C: drive

If you cannot reclaim large amount of disk space, C drive may be full again in the near future, so you'd better add more free space from other partitions.

In most of computers, there is unused space in any other partitions, NIUBI Partition Editor can transfer these free space into C drive without losing data. Operating System, programs and associated setting keep the same with before.

Run Disk Cleanup On Windows 10

DownloadNIUBI Partition Editor Free Edition and follow the steps in the video:

Disc Cleanup Download Windows 10

Expand C drive as large as possible and run Windows 10 Disk cleanup monthly, then you won't see C drive out of space issue again.