Last Updated on June 13, 2023 by Mathew Diekhake
When you notice that a considerable amount of your drive space is used up you may wish to investigate what is taking up that space. That way you can choose to delete certain files that you no longer need and that you know are taking up considerable space.
Windows 10 offers a plethora of statistics for you to see exactly what is taking up your drive space, and it’s all available neatly laid out in the Settings application.
Here’s what you need to view the storage usage of your drivers when you’re using a version of the Windows 10 operating system.
How to View Storage Usage of Drives in Windows 10
1. Open the Settings app and tap/click on System from the Windows Settings categories.
2. Tap/click on Storage from the left side menu and then tap/click on the driver that you want to further investigate that is listed under the Local Storage heading.
3. Storage usage now shows you different categories that hold your data. You can tap/click on each of those categories to get more precise results as well.
4. Inside Temporary files you can see thumbnails, Windows installation files, temporary files, Recycling Bin, temporary internet files, and so forth. Those are all options that are not required for your computer.
5. Tap/click on Manage system restore to see files from System and reserved that are taking up your drive space.
6. You can alter how much space System Restore allocates for your drives if you don’t like the amount of space that you see being used up here.
7. Apps and games shows you each app and how much space it is using up on your drives. Many apps you might have been given preinstalled such as games. You can tap/click on each app and then choose to Uninstall it from the menu if you don’t want it any longer.
That’s all.
March 5, 2019 @ 06:45
Is there any way to do file compression for SSDs?
March 5, 2019 @ 06:49
Yeah, there is Bruce.
You can do that by heading to Temporary Files (step 4 in the guide above) and then scrolling down until you see the “Compress your OS drive” and check the box next to it.
March 5, 2019 @ 06:28
I was under the impression that temporary files got automatically deleted in Windows 10. I can’t remember where I read this but it seemed like a reliable source that one of the differences in Windows 10 compared to older versions is that a lot of the things that clogged the operating system were now dealt with automatically. Maybe I just assumed that meant it would handle the temporary files.
March 5, 2019 @ 06:37
Windows has gradually become an operating system that is much better at maintaining itself — that is true — but you still need to delete the temporary files yourself.
This isn’t so much due to laziness on Windows’ behalf as it is about making sure things aren’t deleted that you may wish you had back. Temporary files also includes files that are currently sitting in your recycling bin and so on.
Disk cleanup in Windows 10
To delete temporary files:
1. Search for Disk cleanup from the taskbar and select it from the list of results.
2. Select the drive you want to clean up, and then select OK.
3. Under Files to delete, select the file types to get rid of. To get a description of the file type, select it.
4. Select OK.
If you need to free up more space, you can also delete system files:
1. In Disk cleanup, select Clean up system files.
2. Select the file types to get rid of. To get a description of the file type, select it.
3. Select OK.
Note: If you notice that the Temp folder fills up quickly after running Disk Cleanup, see Low Disk Space error due to a full Temp folder.
For more on freeing up space on your PC, see Free up drive space in Windows 10.