Windows harddrive space

As crazy as it sounds, it, too, can fill up. True, it'll take two million high-quality photos to do it, but "only" about feature-length 4K movies. Regardless, you get the idea—you may need to check the free space on a drive from time to time, especially if it starts to slow down or act funny, which is very often the not-so-clear consequence of too much stuff in a single place.

Unfortunately, especially in Windows operating systems, you don't get a friendly "Hey, your hard drive is almost full! Instead, you get strange behavior, cryptic error messages, or serious problems like BSODs. Fortunately, it's super easy to check how much free space you have on any of your drives, and it only takes a minute or two.

In Windows 11 or Windows 10, select the Start button, followed by File Explorer the small folder icon. If you don't see it, check under the All apps or Windows System folder, or type file explorer into the search box.

See What version of Windows do I have? If you don't see anything on the left side of this screen, open the View menu and enable the Navigation pane. On the right-hand side, find the drive on which you want to know how much free space is left.

In newer versions of Windows, you can see right under the drive listing how much free space is left on it, as well as the total size of the drive, in a format like this:. If that's all you need to know then you're done! However, there is a bit more information about your drive's capacity buried just a bit deeper:. To see more, right-click or tap-and-hold the drive you want more storage space information on, and then choose Properties. In the General tab, you'll see all the important details about the storage device you're looking at, reported in bytes as well as rounded GB You can do this by searching for it on the taskbar or start menu.

Go to the Advanced tab and click the Settings button under the Performance section. Go to the Advanced tab and click the Change… button in the Virtual memory section. Uncheck the box next to "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives". Select the "Custom size" option and enter the initial and max sizes you wish to let the file grow to. Hit Set and then OK to finish. Alternatively, you can select "no paging file" or leave the system to manage the file size, but for performance reasons you should have a paging file.

One of the easiest ways to clean up files you no longer need is by using Disk Cleanup. Open Disk Cleanup by clicking the Start button. In the search box, type Disk Cleanup , and then, in the list of results, select Disk Cleanup.

If prompted, select the drive that you want to clean up, and then select OK. In the Disk Cleanup dialog box in the Description section, select Clean up system files. In the Disk Cleanup dialog box, on the Disk Cleanup tab, select the check boxes for the file types that you want to delete, and then select OK. To remove data from a previous installation of Windows, select the Previous Windows installation s check box.

Go back to Computer in File Explorer, select the drive you cleaned up, and then select Refresh. If you need to free more space the drive is still marked red , go to the next tip.

Select a program, and then click Uninstall. Some programs include the option to change or repair the program in addition to uninstalling it, but many simply offer the option to uninstall.

To change a program, click Change or Repair. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Note: If the program you want to uninstall isn't listed, it might not have been written for this version of Windows. To uninstall the program, check the information that came with the program.

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Settings, and then tap Change PC settings. If you're using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, click Settings, and then click Change PC settings.

Select Search and apps , and then select App sizes to see how much space each app is taking on the local drive. Once you locate an app you want to uninstall, select the app, and then select Uninstall. Note: This will only uninstall Store apps from your user account. If you have photos, music, videos, or other files that you want to keep but don't necessarily want on your PC, consider saving them to removable media, such as an external drive, USB drive, DVD, or cloud storage. You'll still be able to view those files as long as your PC is connected to the removable media or cloud storage, but they won't take up space on your PC.

Open This PC by swiping in from the right edge of the screen, tapping Search or if you're using a mouse, pointing to the upper-right corner of the screen, moving the mouse pointer down, and then clicking Search , entering This PC in the search box, and then tapping or clicking This PC.

In the Search This PC box in the upper-right, enter size:huge. Select the View menu, select Sort by , and then select Size. The largest files display at the top.

Once you locate a file you want to delete, press and hold or right-click the file and then select Delete. Warning: Deleting files from the WinSxS folder or deleting the entire WinSxS folder might severely damage your system and make it impossible to restart or update your PC.

It stores the Windows Component Store files, which are used to support functions needed to customize and update Windows. If you're getting a Low Disk Space error because of a full Temp folder. Delete personal files or move them to an external storage device.

To see which files are using the most space: Select File Explorer from the taskbar and find the files you want to move. Open Storage settings For each content type, select a drive from the drop-down menu. Why does Windows require additional space during the update process? Open Storage settings The update is compressed to reduce download size.

Why does the amount of space required to update Windows vary so much? It may be best to use an external storage device in the following cases: When access to the internet isn't available. My hard drive is getting full. How will I know if my Windows is up to date? Check for updates Learn more about Windows Update. If I'm considering buying a new device, what should I keep in mind when thinking about Windows updates and storage space on devices with hard drive sizes of 32 GB and 64 GB?

Do I need to clear everything off my hard drive before I run an update, or just some things? Open Storage settings Under More storage settings , select Change where new content is saved. Need more help? Join the discussion. Was this information helpful? Yes No.

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