Local drive C is very important for your system, especially if you don’t have a second drive on your computer at all. You need to regularly monitor the amount of free space so that you don’t find out about it when you only have a gigabyte or two left. In this article you will learn several ways to effectively clean up local drive C, without deleting necessary programs and files.
How to clear space on drive C - emptying the trash
- Simple but effective method. If you do not monitor the filling of your basket, then most likely it is clogged with a large amount of information. Click on the cart icon right click mouse and select the line “Empty Trash”.
- In this way, you can free up several gigabytes of precious computer memory.
How to clear space on drive C - deleting downloads
- All downloaded files are stored by default in the corresponding folder, which is located on drive C. Many of them, perhaps, you have not needed for a long time, but you simply forgot about them. Go to drive C and find the “Users” folder.
- In it, double-click on your account name.
- Now go to the “Downloads” or “Downloads” folder in the English version.
- Most users will be surprised to see how much memory this particular folder wastes.
- Select unnecessary documents and files, click Delete button. Confirm your intention by clicking on the word “yes”. Using this method, you freed up a few more gigabytes on your local drive C.
How to clear space on drive C - removing old programs
You haven’t used some utilities and programs for a long time, but you also don’t remove them from your computer. In the operating room Windows system there is a special dispatcher that will help you do this.
- Go to Control Panel via Start.
- Select the “Uninstall a program” subsection in the “Programs” section.
- The “Programs and Features” window will open in front of you, in it you can see the entire list of installed software, utilities and programs on your computer. Sort them using the “Installation Date”, “Size” and “Version” buttons in the manager header.
- Once you find an unnecessary program, click on the “Uninstall” field. Uninstallation will begin immediately. As a rule, programs do not take up that much memory, with the exception of games. Still, take this method into account.
How to clear space on drive C - cleaning the Temp folder
- In the Windows operating system, on drive C there are two special folders called Temp. They are used to store temporary files that are needed by some processes and programs only for a short period. This folder itself is not cleaned - it just gets cluttered over the years. Find the first folder at: My Computer – Local Disk C – Windows – Temp. Remove all components from it, if any files are not removed, just skip them.
- Now go to the second folder at a different address: My computer – Local drive C – Users – “Your account name” – AppData – Local – Temp. Please note: if you do not see the AppData folder, a separate article will help you open it.
- Delete all accumulated information. Every separate file Temp takes up a small amount of memory, but in the end, you'll clear up a lot of space.
How to clear space on drive C - Disk Cleanup utility.
This program is located directly in the Windows OS, and every user can use it. You can clear temporary files, computer cache and many other unnecessary documents.
- Go to “My Computer” and right-click on it. Select the “Properties” line.
- Find the small “Disk Cleanup” button in the window that appears. Click on it.
- Wait a few minutes while the utility analyzes the data.
- Select all menu items on the left by checking the boxes, also click on the “Clean up system files” button, then click “Ok”. The amount of freed memory will be quite impressive.
Special programs for cleaning drive C
The most popular third-party program is called CCleaner, and it will help clear not only the computer’s cache and temporary files, but also all unnecessary data from browsers and other programs.
You can download it on the official website of the developer, or from your sources.
By completing all six steps, you will free up at least a quarter of the memory on local drive C. Remember that it is recommended to use this drive only for system needs, and create a separate drive for your personal files.
Question from a user
Hello.
Help me decide on one problem: every day I have less and less free space on my computer. system disk, where Windows 10 is installed ( local disk C:\).
Is it possible to somehow limit the appetites of my system, and in general, how to find out where the disk space is disappearing, are there special utilities for this. Thank you in advance!
Good day!
A familiar problem. You look today, 2 GB are missing from your hard drive, tomorrow - another 2-3 GB, in a week - 10 GB are gone... You involuntarily begin to wonder what will happen in a month - there will be no free space left at all?
It’s probably worth saying right away that this rarely happens due to viruses, more often due to certain settings Windows OS itself: an excessive number of restore points due to browser caches, various “garbage” that accumulates on the system partition. In this article I’ll tell you how to get rid of it and free up disk space.
To help!
You might be interested in utilities for cleaning Windows from garbage -
By default, Windows is enabled to create (except, perhaps, Windows 10, and even then if we don’t touch on the topic of assemblies). So, these recovery points can take up to 12% of the space on your hard drive (and on each partition!). Agree, if you have a system partition hard drive with Windows, say, 200 GB - then giving about 25 GB to recovery points is too much?!
Note: I do not advocate working without restore points at all, but it is quite possible to reduce the ardor of the OS. Moreover, it is not the number of points that is important, but the quality.
And so, to configure the location for recovery points, open: and open the tab (screenshots below to help).
Next, select your HDD In chapter "Available drives" and click the "Customize" button ( note: opposite your system drive "C:\" - the Windows icon will light up).
Then move the slider and limit the disk space used to protect the system (if you use third party programs for backup - you can disable all this protection altogether).
Note: By the way, under the slider that controls disk usage, there is a button for deleting old restore points. You can use it to clean and free up space on your hard drive.
Swap file and hibernation file (hiberfil.sys)
About the swap file (pagefile.sys)
How more programs you launch (and the more demanding they are) - the more random access memory they will demand. There comes a time when the RAM is busy, and another “piece of space” is needed. To avoid freezing, Windows uses the space on your hard drive where the least active and necessary data is sent. It is used for this special file- they call him swap file (explained chaotically, but I think a wide audience will understand).
So, essentially this file is needed to expand your RAM. This file is usually 2 times larger than the size of your RAM. Thus, this file can take up significant disk space.
How to check how much space the paging file takes up and how to configure it
To do this you need to open the panel Windows management at the following address: \System and Security\System .
Then, in the "Advanced" tab, open the performance options (see screenshot below).
In most cases, it is recommended to check the box next to “Automatically select paging file size.” True, sometimes the system takes up too much space - in this case, set the volume to 1.5-2 times larger than the size of your RAM. This space will be enough for Windows to function normally.
Note: Many people mistakenly believe that the more space they allocate for virtual memory, the faster their PC will work. This is a real misconception!
The fact is that the speed of reading information from a hard drive is much less than from RAM. Therefore, the page file is used for applications that this moment are not used by you.
About the file for hibernation and sleep mode (hiberfil.sys)
To quickly “wake up” the computer and start working with it, there is a special one. hibernation mode (in which all the contents of RAM are written to a special file hiberfil.sys(located on the system drive)).
Thanks to this, after turning on the PC, in a matter of seconds it can restore everything from this file and return the computer to its previous state, as if it had never been turned off.
But you have to “pay” for everything - file hiberfil.sys takes up quite a lot of free disk space. If you do not use this PC shutdown mode, then you can “remove” it. To do this, open command line and enter the command powercfg -h off(screenshot below).
Accumulation of temporary and junk files. Disk cleaning
No matter how careful you are, over time, all sorts of “garbage” begins to accumulate on any hard drive: files from old remote applications, temporary files used during the installation process, browser cache, empty folders, incorrect labels, etc.
All this “good”, over time, begins to seriously affect the performance of your system as a whole...
The highest quality Windows cleaning from garbage they provide special utilities. I talked about them in one of my previous articles, link below.
To help! Best programs to clean your computer from debris -
Disk Cleanup / Computer Accelerator Utility
Windows also has its own disk cleaning tool. To run it you must first open "This computer" (“My computer”), then go to properties the desired disk and click the "Disk Cleanup" button (see screenshot below).
Then check the boxes next to the data that you allow the program to clear on your disk. For example, installation log files, temporary Internet files, offline web pages, etc. By the way, please note that the cleaner tells you how much space can be freed up (on the screen below - up to 314 MB).
Choosing what to clean: which files to delete
By the way, I can’t help but note , what is special. utilities that can not only remove junk, but also configure the system so that your PC works at maximum performance. In my humble opinion, one of the best of its kind is Advanced SystemCare (even in its free version).
For example, while analyzing my disk in Windows (at the time of writing the article)- this utility found as many as 16 GB of junk files! In addition, download items, privacy issues, shortcut errors, malware, are checked system registry. In general, a real combine!
Disk cleaning in Advanced SystemCare - 16 GB of garbage found!
Analysis of used disk space: how to find large files and folders
Sometimes you’ve already done everything: cleaned Windows of garbage, checked all the files and folders manually, looked installed programs and games - but there is nothing suspicious, and there is not enough free space (it disappeared somewhere, but where?)!
In this case, you can use special utilities, which will help you build a diagram of the occupied meta on the disk, and you can visually and quickly find the largest folders and files. Well, with the folders you find, you can decide for yourself what to do: delete or leave...
In my humble opinion, a very good utility for this matter is WinDirStat.
A simple and convenient utility for estimating used and free space on your hard drive. The utility will build you a convenient diagram in a matter of minutes, using which you can quickly find files and folders that take up a significant amount of space (everything that you have long forgotten about, or didn’t even know about!).
What’s also captivating about the program is the built-in tool for deleting folders and files. Just be careful: the utility sees hidden and system files, and you can easily delete data necessary for the system to function. Before deleting a particular file, find out about it!
As an example, I will give a screenshot of my analyzed disk.
WinDirStat - estimate of used disk space
As you can see, it shows how much space certain folders take up, what files are in them, etc. Below is a diagram; by clicking on an area of a certain color, you will see the file that was presented. Of course, it is best to start your analysis with the largest areas of the chart.
To help!
What is my hard drive full of (or where has the free space on the HDD gone) [Disk Analysis] -
That's all for me, I hope your hard drive is no longer cramped and there is free space!
In the life of every user, sooner or later there comes a moment when running out of free space on drive C and a similar message pops up. At the same time, the computer begins to slow down terribly, many programs do not work correctly or do not work at all. It is advisable to avoid such a situation, but if it has befallen you, in this article I will tell you how to deal with it - Free up space on your system drive without damaging the system.
1. Windows temporary files
The first thing to do in such cases is to remove temporary Windows files. To do this, you need to delete all the contents of the folders:
\Temp
\WINDOWS\TEMP
for Windows XP:
\Documents and Settings\<имя_пользователя>\Local Settings\Temp
\Documents and Settings\<имя_пользователя>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
\Documents and Settings\<имя_пользователя>\Local Settings\History
for Windows 7, Vista:
\Users\<имя_пользователя>\AppData\Local\Temp
\Users\<имя_пользователя>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files
\Users\<имя_пользователя>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History
In all sorts of “beast gatherings” Windows location temporary folder may differ. To find the temporary folder, follow these steps:
Start -> Run(for Windows XP)
Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Run(for Windows 7, Vista)
In the Run window, in the Open field, enter the following text: %TEMP%
Click on the button "OK«.
It is best to delete files using file manager, such as Total Commander because: a) folder Local Settings usually hidden and the user may simply not find it; b) in a folder Temp There are several files that cannot be deleted because they are currently in use by the system. For Windows Explorer this becomes an insurmountable task and he cannot completely clean the folder:
For Total Commander both of these issues do not pose problems.
2. Windows update files
After updates operating system in folder \WINDOWS\ There are still many folders whose names begin with “$...” You can also delete them all:
3. Browser cache
Opera Internet browsers, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer(especially version 6) sometimes leave a huge amount of garbage on the system disk, which is also useful to clean sometimes. This is done like this:
for Mozilla Firefox: Tools -> Erase Recent History. Select item "All", press "OK":
for Opera: Settings -> Delete personal data. You can expand the list " Detailed setting ", press " Delete«:
for Chrome: Chrome menu(on the toolbar) -> Tools -> Delete browsing data. Select the item " during all this time", press the button "Clear the history":
for Internet Explorer: Service -> Delete browsing history, or Service -> Internet Options ->
Are common ->
Browsing history ->
"Delete" button... 
In this way, you can clear drive C from several gigabytes of garbage, which consists mainly of many thousands of small (up to 10 kb) files, which can significantly slow down the operation of browsers and the computer as a whole.
4. Downloading browsers, torrent clients, DC, MediaGet, DownloadMaster, etc.
By default, all program data loads files onto the “C” drive, which very quickly leads to its clogging. To prevent this, it is necessary to configure the paths for saving files from the Internet “not on drive C” in each such program.
for Mozilla Firefox: Tools -> Settings -> General -> Path to save files:
for Opera: Settings -> Advanced -> Downloads - > Save downloaded files to:
for Chrome: Chrome menu (toolbar) -> Settings -> Advanced settings:
for uTorrent: Settings -> Program settings -> Folders
For other programs that download anything from the Internet or local network The setting principle is the same.
5. Mail program databases (TheBat, Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Office Outlook, etc.)
With intensive exchange of information using email programs, the size of their databases can grow to incredible sizes over time. It is advisable to take this point into account at the stage of installing and configuring these programs, but if you haven’t done this, it doesn’t matter, you can still fix it.
for TheBat: Box -> Properties mailbox-> Files and directories:
For Microsoft Office Outlook: Service -> Accounts Email-> View or change existing accounts-> Create Outlook data file:
You can check whether everything is correct and at the same time delete an unnecessary file from drive “C” here: Tools -> Options -> Mail settings-> Data files:
For other email programs, everything is configured according to the same principles.
7. Temporary program files
Programs that work with large amounts of data, such as disc burning programs (e.g. Nero Burning ROM), video (e.g. Pinnacle Studio), audio editors, image processing programs (e.g. Adobe Photoshop) in the process of their work create large temporary files (the so-called “cache”) and, if there is not enough free space to create them, they refuse to work normally, and various failures occur. To prevent this, you need to promptly transfer their temporary files to another disk:
Nero Burning ROM: File -> Presets -> Cache:
Pinnacle Studio: Settings -> Project Options:
Adobe Photoshop: Editing-> Settings -> Performance:
8. Games
From the very beginning of using a computer, you should make it a rule: “If possible, do not install games on drive “C”! Moreover, modern games take up several DVDs, and after installation they can take up several tens of gigabytes. After installing several of these games, you will run out of free space on any disk, no matter how large it is:
9. My Documents and Desktop
This problem dates back to the time of the very first dinosaurs. Windows versions. 8 generations of the operating system have already changed, and user folders are still located on the system drive. Moreover, it has worsened: starting from Windows Vista added to them additional folders, such as “Drawings”, “Videos”, “Music”, “Downloads”, “Games”, “Contacts”, “Searches”, “Links”...
There is also no standard procedure for transferring all user folders to another local drive. There are only a few possibilities, for example, in Windows XP you can move the “My Documents” folder:
Quite experienced and novice PC users have a bad habit of saving the necessary and most needed files on the desktop. A dozen or two gigabytes of information on your desktop is, unfortunately, not at all uncommon! What can you recommend? There is only one thing - to completely refuse to use these “wonderful opportunities” and important information keep NOT on drive C. Moreover, the probability of losing information stored on drive “C” is much higher than on any other logical drive.
10.Programs
Review the list of installed programs and remove those that you will no longer use, especially large ones:
11. Sleep mode
If all else fails, disabling the use of sleep mode will save from 1 to 5 additional gigabytes.
for Windows XP: Start-> Control Panel -> Appearance and Themes -> Screen -> Screensaver -> Power -> Sleep Mode. Uncheck " Allow use of sleep mode»
for Windows 7, Vista: Start -> Control Panel -> Power supply -> Setting up a power plan -> Put your computer into sleep mode -> « Never". You can also disable the sleep function. Select "Change advanced power settings" and in the window, find sleep mode and turn it off. After disabling Sleep Mode, you can delete hidden file hiberfil.sys in the root directory of the system disk. It’s a little easier to do this with help: just enter the command “ powercfg -hibernate -off«.
12. Other
Large files can appear in any other place on the system disk, where you wouldn’t expect to see it:
- log files of some programs can grow to many tens of gigabytes;
- one of the users may safely hide and forget the “collection of videos”. Where is the best place to do this? Of course, somewhere in the wilds system folders on drive "C";
- some program or plugin for Photoshop stores its database (10-100 GB in size) in a user folder;
In such cases, it is necessary to check the size of all folders (including hidden and system) and find the “culprit” by eliminating. With help Total programs Commander is again easier to do this: just press the key combination Ctrl+Alt+Enter in an open folder and the size of all attached files and folders will appear in the palm of your hand:
Another case: the folder for temporary files of Avira antivirus has grown to an incredible 16 GB:
13. Basket
Emptying the Recycle Bin is a fairly obvious way to clean up disks of already deleted files, but sometimes quite a large number of files accumulate there, which also negatively affects computer performance.
13. Cleaner programs
There are a huge number of programs that promise, with the click of one or maximum two buttons, to solve all the user’s problems with computer performance and raise it to unprecedented heights. As practice and common sense show, these programs can only solve some (or rather only 1, 2 and 3, and some other little things) from the problems described above, which in this particular case may well not be the most important problem. Although automating this process saves time: it is much faster to automatically delete temporary files than to clean them out manually. Standard program disk cleanup ( Start -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup) is slightly worse than alternatives (eg CCleaner).
14. What else do they write about on the “Internet”
On “our Internets” there are also many fables, myths, unverified facts and outright misinformation. These, from my point of view, include:
- deleting, resizing, moving the swap file;
- deletion backup copies system files, drivers;
- removal or modification of operating system components;
- removing duplicate operating system files;
- formatting drive C.
It is not advisable to touch operating system components without a clear understanding of what exactly you are doing and why.
15. Summary
Long gone are the days when you could put Windows, a bunch of programs and a lot of data into a 1 GB hard drive and still manage to work and play games. Memory capacity for hard drives The average user has already crossed the several terabyte mark, but the problems remain the same. Well, artificial intelligence experience and common sense will not soon replace it. Keep an eye on the free space - for comfortable operation of the operating system there should be at least no less than 1/3 of the disk capacity, or no less (or preferably more) several gigabytes. The final step of this work is to achieve an even better result.
If free space on drive "C" is quickly ending, then it's time to release it different ways which we will look at in this article. After all, a small amount of space on the system disk leads to all sorts of consequences, for example the situation when the computer starts to slow down or work in some programs becomes impossible.
Whatever one may say, there should be at least several gigabytes of free space on the system drive “C”.
In fact, you can free up space on the C drive different ways. Additionally, you can add disk space using other disks. But first things first. After reading this article you will know where can Lost space on drive "C", and what to do to get it back. You can take any of the steps described right now and use it, or you can comprehensively apply all the tips and clean up space on the system drive.
Installed programs
Of course, most of the space on the system disk is occupied by installed programs, so first of all pay your attention to this point. Uninstall unused programs using a standard Windows utility.
By opening “Start – Control Panel – Uninstall a program” you can sort installed applications by date, size or title. Uninstall what you don't need.
In this way, you can free up, if not several gigabytes, then at least several hundred megabytes, which will allow drive “C” to “breathe” freely. I described the process of uninstalling programs in Windows 7 in more detail in the corresponding lesson on this site.
Basket
Remember that everything deleted files most often end up in the Trash first. A folder called “Trash” acts as a temporary storage for everything deleted. But in fact, it takes up space on our computers.
In order to permanently erase data from the recycle bin, just right-click on it and select the appropriate “Empty Recycle Bin” item.
Downloads folder
Most often, downloaded files from the Internet are saved by default to the “Downloads” folder on the “C” drive. It’s not difficult to guess that if you constantly download something, but don’t move the files anywhere, then they will begin to take up hundreds of megabytes, or even several gigabytes, and the free space on the disk will become less and less.
Therefore, you need to open “Computer” and go to the “Downloads” folder.
And make sure that there are no large files there, and if there are, then delete them or move them to another drive.
This is another step that is more common for novice users and will help them free up disk space in Windows 7 or another system. Let's move on.
Temp folders
In Windows there are two Temp folders in which various temporary files are saved. For example, files that are needed when installing programs, drivers, Windows update or antivirus and so on. But after they become useless, you can simply delete them to free up some more space on the C drive.
Open “Computer – drive C – Windows folder" Find the Temp folder there and delete all contents.
If some files are not deleted, it’s okay, just click the “Skip” button. The main thing is that most of the unnecessary “garbage” will be removed.
The second Temp folder can be opened by searching in Start by entering the query %TEMP% and opening the found folder. We clear its contents.
P.S. Don't forget to empty the trash if the data is from Temp folders will go into it.
Disk Cleanup
Clean up drive "C" from others unnecessary files can be standard Windows utility. To do this, just right-click on the disk and select “Properties” from the drop-down list.
Immediately on the “General” tab we need to click the “Disk Cleanup” button.
And wait a while while the program analyzes the data and finds possible unnecessary files. Then she will offer us to delete them by checking the boxes next to them.
Swap file
Windows has a paging file; this is a thing that is needed for those cases when there is not enough main RAM to perform tasks in programs. Typically, the paging file takes a couple of gigabytes from the system drive “C” for its needs. We need to make sure that these gigabytes are taken from some other disk.
You need to go to the “Properties” of the Computer. Open “Advanced system parameters”, here click the first “Options” button and on the “Advanced” tab, through the “Change” button, specify the size of the paging file on some other drive. This way we can free up space on drive “C” by a couple more gigabytes. But that's not all.
Hibernation Mode
If you want to save even more space on your system disk, I recommend disabling hibernation mode, but only as a last resort. This is a very convenient feature that allows you to put your computer into Sleep mode leaving open folders, programs, etc., and turn it off even from the network. One way or another, by turning on the computer again, all opened folders, programs and data in them will be restored thanks to the Hibernation mode.
You can disable Hibernation mode by opening the command line through a search in Start.
And by writing the command: “powercfg.exe -h off” - to disable hibernation mode. Click " Enter ».
Now, after restarting the computer, we will see that there is a little more free disk space. And to turn it on again this mode, we need to write a similar command: “ powercfg.exe -h on" Naturally, all this is done without quotes.
System Restore
Another way free up space on drive "C"- delete recovery checkpoints, since they also take up a certain amount of megabytes. To see them you need to go to “Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - System Restore”.
A window will open where we can observe checkpoints that are created every time we update drivers, or install some programs, and so on.
This useful feature gives us the opportunity to restore our computer to a more efficient state. For example, after an unsuccessful attempt to update drivers, or after a virus attack. If such a situation happens, the first thing you can do is restore your PC using a checkpoint. I recommend leaving one last point and deleting the rest.
CCleaner program
If you install it, you will see the following window:
The most interesting tabs here are “Cleaning” and “Service”, where you can: remove everything unnecessary, clear the cache, remove programs from startup, and more. And on the tab " Registry“You can clean it simply by clicking the “Search for problems” button. I usually leave all the checkboxes that are checked there.
And one last thing.
BONUS
As a last resort, if you have catastrophic, chronic and permanent not enough disk space, then you can increase it using another disk.
Source
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