During its operation, the operating system creates a lot of temporary data that is stored on disk (usually drive C) in the form of files and registry entries. These can be files from update packages, archivers, shadow copies, content downloaded from the Internet, etc. Third-party programs behave in a similar way, for example, browsers that store website data in a cache. Some temporary files are deleted automatically after a certain time, others remain on the disk until they are forcibly deleted.

If the user does not regularly maintain and clean up the C drive, the free space on it becomes less and less, to the point that the disk eventually ends up filled to capacity with temporary files, which precludes further writing of any data to it. reduces its performance. There are two ways out of this situation - either increase the size of the system partition at the expense of the user volume, or perform a comprehensive cleanup of it, which is more preferable. Let's see how to free up space on your local C drive in Windows 7/10.

What can you delete if the disk is full?

The system volume contains many important files that ensure the normal operation of Windows, so deep cleaning it should be approached with the utmost care. What can you delete from the C drive to free up space and not disrupt the system? All its contents can be divided into three groups. The first includes files that can be deleted without any fear. The second consists of files, the deletion of which, although it will not harm the system, can still cause certain problems under some circumstances. The third group includes files that cannot be deleted, as this can make programs and the system inoperable. You can clean up drive C without negative consequences by deleting:

• Cart Contents.
• Library catalogues.
• Folders and Downloaded Program Files in the Windows directory.
• Cache of browsers and some third-party programs.
• Icon sketches.
• Logs and memory dumps for system errors.
• Old Chkdsk utility files.
• Bug reports.
• Files created by the Windows debugger.

With some caution, you can delete shadow copies () created during the installation of updates and stored in backup copies, files from previous system installations (Windows.old folder), unnecessary components and applications, folders of uninstalled programs in the ProgramData, Program Files and Roaming directories, MSOCache Microsoft Office folder. If you do not use Quick Start, you can delete the file hiberfil.sys in the root of drive C, having previously disabled these functions in the settings. It is acceptable, but not recommended, to delete the swap file pagefile.sys. Other files and folders on drive C cannot be deleted so as not to disrupt the operation of the system.

Cleaning junk and temporary files using Windows

First, let's look at how to clear drive C of unnecessary files in Windows 7/10 using the operating system itself. Windows has a built-in utility for these purposes. cleanmgr.exe, which can be launched either through the properties of the partition being cleaned or through the “Run” dialog box. After the utility scans the disk for outdated files, check the boxes on the “Disk Cleanup” tab and click “OK.”

If you click the “Clean up system files” button, reports, device driver packages, error dumps and, additionally, restore points, with the exception of the most recent one, will become available for deletion.

For a deeper and more thorough cleaning of drive C from garbage, you can use the built-in console utilities Dism And vssadmin. The first allows you to delete temporary data from the WinSxS folder, including backups created before installing Windows updates. To do this, use the following commands executed in the CMD console running as administrator:

1. DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
2. DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /SPSuperseded
3. vssadmin delete shadows /all /quiet

The first command does the same thing as the cleanmgr.exe utility, only more thoroughly.

The second deletes all backup update packages from the WinSxS folder.

The third command can delete all restore points, including the last one.

However, you should use these tools with caution, since after executing the indicated commands, you will no longer be able to roll back the system to a working state or a previous version.

Note: Before cleaning the WinSxS folder, it is recommended to set its true size, thereby making sure that it really needs cleaning. To do this, you need to run the command on the command line Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore and compare the actual size of the component store with the size indicator in the Explorer properties.

After updating Windows to a newer version, a folder appears in the root of drive C Windows.old, which can take up significant disk space.

The contents of this directory are copies of the system installation files of the previous version of Windows. If you are determined not to return to the old version of the system, the Windows.old folder can be deleted. This is done again either using cleanmgr.exe or using the command line. In the first case, you need to find and select the “Previous Windows installations” item on the “Advanced” tab; in the second case, run the command in the CMD console running as administrator rd /s /q c:/windows.old.

You can get a little extra space on the C drive by removing unused components, the same ones that are accessible through the classic Add/Remove Programs applet.

The standard Dism utility is also used here. To select and uninstall an unused Windows component, run the following two commands in the CMD console running with elevated rights:

1. DISM.exe /Online /English /Get-Features /Format:Table
2. DISM.exe /Online /Disable-Feature /featurename:NAME /Remove

The first command displays a list of all components in the system, the second deletes the selected element. In this example, its name must be substituted for the NAME line element.

Manual removal of programs and files

With the exception of Windows 8.1 and 10 universal apps, almost all desktop programs are installed in the folder Program Files. If a program is no longer needed, it should be deleted so that it does not take up disk space, but this must be done either using a standard uninstaller or using special third-party programs. However, after uninstalling applications, folders with configuration files may remain on the disk, the weight of which can reach several hundred megabytes. Such data must be deleted manually.

Let's say you have removed Microsoft Office or Skype from your computer and you also want to get rid of all their remaining “tails” on the C drive. To do this, carefully check the Program Files and ProgramData directories in the root of drive C, as well as the folders C:/Users/Username/AppData. If the folder name matches the name of the deleted application, it can be deleted.

The AppData folder is a little more complicated. This hidden directory contains three subfolders: Local, LocalLow and Roaming. The first stores files created during the operation of various programs. You cannot clear it entirely, as this will most likely lead to the loss of saved application settings, however, half-empty folders of uninstalled programs can be completely safely deleted. You can also safely clear the contents of the folder located in it Temp.

The same applies to the LocalLow and Roaming folders; it is permissible to delete from them only those directories that belonged to previously uninstalled applications.

Note: By clearing the contents of the Local, LocalLow and Roaming folders, you lose user settings and data saved in their cache. For example, after deleting its folders in your user profile, you will lose your current messenger settings and part of your message history.

As for removing universal applications, they are uninstalled using the standard tools of the system itself or the CCleaner program, which will be discussed below. You can also move some universal applications from drive C to drive D, if they support this feature.

Transferring desktop programs to another volume is also possible; there is a special utility for this purpose SteamMover, which you can download from the developer’s website www.traynier.com/software/steammover.

Using CCleaner

Many novice users are interested in how to delete unnecessary files from drive C using third-party programs, as well as which of these programs are more effective and safe in this regard. These can be recommended CCleaner– a simple, fast, convenient, and most importantly safe Windows disk and registry cleaner. This program allows you to delete temporary data from the Internet and Windows itself, the contents of the thumbnail cache and DNS, Index.dat files, memory dumps, fragments of chkdsk files, various system logs, outdated prefetch files and a lot of other unimportant data.

Using CCleaner, you can clear the system registry of incorrect entries, optimize, enable, disable or remove browser extensions, analyze the contents of hard drives, search for duplicates and, of course, uninstall unnecessary applications, including universal ones.

CCleaner's interface is very simple, so understanding its simple functionality will not be difficult even for a novice user.

Considering, however, that the main purpose of CCleaner is still cleaning, all its additional tools have limited functionality. If your C drive is full of unknown things, and you want to find out what exactly it is, then for these purposes it is better to use specific utilities, for example, Scanner, JdiskReport or their analogues, showing more accurate information about the file structure of the media with the ability to navigate through subdirectories.

Other ways to free up space on drive C

Clearing the Driver Store

The steps described above are usually enough to free up enough space on the system volume, but what if drive C is still full? What else can you do to get additional space? One option is to clear the contents of the folder FileRepository located at C:/Windows/System32/DriverStore.

This directory contains copies of device drivers that were ever connected to the computer, and may also contain outdated versions of drivers. Before deleting driver packages from the FileRepository folder, it is highly advisable to create a complete list of them and find only outdated versions in it, and leave the rest untouched. It also wouldn't hurt to create a complete copy of all drivers installed on the system. To list the DriverStore drivers in a file, run the following command in an elevated command prompt:

pnputil.exe /e > C:/drivers.log

Compare the driver versions in the list and remove only the outdated ones.

To remove the selected driver, immediately run the command in the console pnputil.exe /d oem№.inf, where № is the name of the driver in the list.

If an error appears in the console when uninstalling a driver, it means the driver is being used by the system. There is no need to touch such a component.

As an alternative to the command line, you can use the free utility Driver Store Explorer, just designed to remove old unused device drivers.

Disabling hibernation

Thanks to the hibernation mode, the user can quickly return to work in running applications; on the other hand, its use requires the allocation of significant space on the system disk, slightly less than or equal to the amount of RAM. If having free space on your hard drive is a priority for you, you can disable hibernation mode by deleting the hiberfil.sys container file.

Launch the CMD console as an administrator and run the command in it powercfg -h off. Hibernation will be disabled and the bulky hiberfil.sys file will be removed.

Note: The hibernation file can be compressed by a maximum of two times with the command powercfg hibernate size 50.

Disabling the page file

In addition to other hidden system objects, there is also a file in the root of drive C that can be deleted under certain conditions. This is the swap file pagefile.sys. This file plays the role of a RAM buffer, and if an application does not have enough RAM to operate, its data is temporarily written to . Accordingly, if there is no swap file, a heavy application will slow down greatly or simply freeze while waiting for faster RAM to become available. Therefore, disabling and deleting the paging file is not recommended unless the computer has a very large amount of RAM.

If your PC has more than 10 GB of memory or you do not intend to run resource-intensive applications, you can try carefully disabling swap. To do this, open Advanced system settings and on the “Advanced” tab in the “Performance” block, click the “Options” button.

This will open another window. Switch to the “Advanced” tab, and then click the Change button in the “Virtual Memory” block.

Uncheck the “Automatically select paging file size” checkbox, turn on the “No paging file” radio button, save the settings and reboot. The pagefile.sys file will be deleted.

Removing the MSOcache folder

Users who have installed Microsoft Office have a hidden folder in the root of the system volume MSOcache, the weight of which can reach several gigabytes.

This folder is an office suite cache and contains files that may be needed to restore Microsoft Office if it becomes corrupted. The MSOcache folder is not involved in launching Microsoft Office or working with documents, so it can be deleted in the standard way. Just keep in mind that if Microsoft Office is damaged for some reason, you will have to restore the package from the installation disk with its distribution.

Compressing the contents of a system volume

You can free up some free space on drive C without deleting anything from it at all. Instead, all system files can be compressed. To do this, just open the properties of drive C, on the “General” tab, check the box “Shrink this drive to save space” and click “OK”.

To compress system files in Windows 10, you can use the function Compact OS by running one of two commands in the CMD console running as administrator:

• compact /CompactOs:query
• compact /CompactOs:always

The second command performs the same actions as the first, but in forced mode. It is used if you really want to shrink the system volume, and the first command rejects the operation, considering it inappropriate. Compression is completely reversible and to return the file system to its normal state, just execute the reverse command compact /CompactOs:never.

In addition to NTFS compression, LZX compression is available in Windows 10, but it has a number of disadvantages, which is why it is not widely used. LZX compression is applicable to read-only files and directories, but an entire system volume cannot be compressed with its help due to the risk of an unbootable system.

Hard drives are getting bigger and bigger, but somehow they always fill up. This is especially true if you're using a solid-state drive (SSD), which offers much less hard drive space than traditional mechanical hard drives.

Empty trash

Fig No. 1. Empty trash.

When you delete items, such as files and photos, from your computer, they are not immediately deleted. Instead, they are placed in the Recycle Bin and continue to take up valuable hard drive space. To empty the Trash, go to your desktop, right-click on the Trash and select Empty Trash. A warning pop-up will appear if you are sure you want to permanently delete the contents of your Trash. Click "Yes" to continue.

Disk Cleanup

Windows has a built-in Disk Cleanup utility (precisely called Disk Cleanup) that will help you clean up space by deleting various files, including temporary internet files, system error dump files, and even previous Windows installations that may still be on your drive.

Fig No. 2. Disk cleanup.

You can find Disk Cleanup in the Start menu under All Apps > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. Select the drive you want to clean, click OK.

Click the Disk Cleanup button in the disk properties window.

Figure No. 3.0. Disk cleanup.

After clicking on the “Clean up Disk” button, the Disk Cleanup program will calculate how much space you can free up. This process can last from a few seconds to several minutes. In general, the more cluttered your hard drive is, the longer it takes to scan.

Figure No. 3.1. Site assessment.

Select the file types you want to delete and click OK. This includes temporary files, log files, files in the Recycle Bin, and other unimportant files. When you're ready, click OK to delete. Make sure you check the drawers for each of the file categories you want to clean out. Confirm that you want to delete these files.

You can also clean up system files that are not listed here. Click clean system files button if you also want to delete system files.

Fig No. 4. Clean up system files.

Wait while Disk Cleanup calculates how much space you can free up. This process can last from a few seconds to several minutes. In general, the more cluttered your hard drive is, the longer it takes to scan.

Fig No. 5. Site assessment.

After this, you will have the “Advanced” tab in which you can clear “System Restore and Shadow Copies” to delete system recovery data. This button deletes everything except the most recent restore point, so make sure your computer is working properly before using it - you won't be able to use older system restore points.

Figure No. 6. Free up additional disk space.

You can also clear “Programs and Features” by clicking on the top “Clear” button shown in Figure 6, or follow the following path “Start”> “Control Panel”> “Programs and Features” or “Uninstall Programs”.

The following window will open in which you can remove all unused or unnecessary programs.

Fig No. 7. Removing programs.

Wait until the list of all programs installed on your computer is updated. Look at programs that take up a lot of space and are not used at all. Select the program and click the Uninstall button.

Expand drive "C" with drive "D" without third-party software.

This method is only suitable if you do not have important data on the “d” drive and you can format it all. Open Windows Disk Management. Press the key combination “Win ​​+ R” on the keyboard, the “Run” window will appear, enter the command “diskmgmt.msc” and press the Enter key.

In the window that opens, we tear out the disk on which there is no necessary information and by right-clicking, a properties window will open where you need to select “Delete volume”.

After this, free space will appear in which you need to delete partitions to expand the “C” drive, right-click on the free space and select “Delete partitions”.

The Volume Expansion Wizard will open, allowing you to increase the size of simple or spanned volumes. Click the Next button. In the next window you need to select the size by which you can increase the “C” drive. Next, click the “next” and “ready” button. And we see that there is more space on drive C.

Next, you need to create a new disk D. Right-click on “Unallocated”, select “create a new volume...” > “Next”, select the disk size “D” > “Next” > Select the drive letter, “Next” > “Next” " > "Ready."

Video on how to enlarge drive C

The capacity of hard drives is becoming larger and larger every year in both computers and laptops, but for some reason they are still always filled with data for most users. Lack of space has been an eternal problem since the existence of the first computer. And if you are using a solid state drive (SSD), which offers much less space, then low disk space messages are almost like home.

Run Disk Cleanup

The Windows operating system includes a built-in tool that allows you to delete temporary files and other system files that are not of much interest. To open the tool Disk Cleanup, right-click on one of your hard drives in the window Computer or Conductor and select Properties.

Click the button Disk Cleanup in the window Properties: Your disk.

After a short analysis, a window will open Disk Cleanup.

Disk Cleanup

Alternatively you can simply type Disk Cleanup on the menu Start.

Among the files to be deleted, you can delete downloaded program files, temporary Internet files, recycle bin files, thumbnail images, and more. Select the types of files you want to delete by checking each box and click OK. I advise you to select all items whose volume exceeds 10 MB.

Clicking the button Clean system files in the same window, you can see additional items that can also be deleted, for example, memory dump files for system errors, Windows Defender files and others. Sometimes this is the only way to delete many more files with the Disk Cleanup tool than by simply deleting temporary files without clicking the Clean up system files button.

Cleaning system files

Removing Capacitive Applications

Removing heavy programs will free up additional space. In the snap Programs and components Control Panels, click on a column Size to arrange all installed applications in descending order of space taken up. Analyze and remove large applications that you do not use.

Uninstalling programs

If you don't see the column Size, press the button Additionally and select view Table.

If you are using Windows 10, you can also open Options using Start > Options > System. Next, open the item Applications and Features. Sort apps by size and analyze the apps you don't need.

Windows 10 Settings

Unlike equipment Programs and components window Options will allow you to remove applications from the Windows Store, including if you are using a Windows 10 tablet.

Disk space analysis

To find out what exactly is taking up space on your hard drive, you need to use a hard drive analysis program. This application scans your hard drive and then displays the result, showing which files and folders take up the most space. There are a lot of such applications, but I will use WinDirStat, which can be downloaded from the official website.

After installing WinDirStat, select which local drives you want to scan. The scanning process can last from one to several hours depending on the number and capacity of disks. The scan result will show which folders and files are taking up the most space.

WinDirStat

Make sure that you do not delete important system files, only delete your personal files. If the Program Files folder takes up a huge amount of space, analyze and remove unused applications. WinDirStat will tell you how much space each installed program takes up, even if the Programs and Features snap-in in the Control Panel showed an empty result for some programs.

Clearing temporary files

The built-in Windows Disk Cleanup tool is very useful, although it does not delete temporary files of third-party applications. For example, it will not clear Firefox or Chrome temporary files, which can use gigabytes of free space on your hard drive. The same third-party browser cache is stored on the hard drive and also needs to be cleared periodically.

The browser cache saves time when re-opening websites by storing a copy of it on your hard drive. It is called cache. Thus, the cache allows you to open the main page of a site from the Internet today and not download it entirely tomorrow, but use its local copy. This allows you to reduce the speed of re-opening websites several times.

For a more aggressive cleaning of temporary and junk files, try CCleaner which can be downloaded. CCleaner cleans junk files of various third-party programs, and also cleans temporary Windows files that Disk Cleanup may not touch.

After installation, perform an analysis and make a decision, checking the boxes that you will delete.

CCleaner

Analysis for duplicate files

Another important way to free up additional free space on your hard drive is to find and delete duplicate files. There are simply a lot of applications for this purpose, paid and free. I will use the trial version Duplicate Cleaner Pro, which you can download.

Duplicate Cleaner Pro

Reducing system recovery space

If System Restore consumes a lot of hard drive space for the restore points it creates, you can reduce the amount of disk space allocated to System Restore.

Try to set the optimal size of disk space for recovery points so that you are not left without them and do not add extra points that are useless. So, if you often experiment with your computer, I advise you to set 5 to 10% of the disk space for recovery points. If the computer is used to view photographs from a home archive or film library, then a value not exceeding 5% will be quite sufficient.

System Restore

If the System Restore function is not important to you at all, or your priority is to free up as much disk space as possible, then System Restore can be turned off altogether by selecting Disable system protection and deleting all restore points by clicking Delete.

Disabling sleep and hibernation

The following tricks will certainly save space, but you will have to sacrifice some important Windows features. Therefore, I recommend using these methods if they may be useful to you.

• Disabling sleep mode. When the system uses sleep mode, it stores the contents of RAM on the hard drive. This allows the current state of the system to be stored without significant power consumption. And the next time you access the computer, the system simply loads the contents of the hard drive, returning you to the state of the computer that was at the time of shutdown. Windows saves the contents of RAM to a file in the path C:\Hiberfil.sys, by default. To save hard disk space, sleep mode can be disabled completely by changing the power plan settings

• Disable hibernation mode. Similar to disabling sleep mode, you can also turn off hibernation mode, which, unlike sleep mode, does not require electricity at all to maintain the current state of the system. And sometimes, if the number and location of windows that are currently open matters to you, but you need to take a break, then the computer system can be sent to hibernation mode. Returning to your computer a day or a week later, you will find that when you started the computer, the system loaded exactly the state in which you paused.

Here are a few ways that will allow you to significantly reduce the size of your disk space and free up additional space. If you know other ways to increase free hard drive space in Windows, please leave your comments.

Sooner or later, everyone has to wonder how to clean the disk from unnecessary files. This material describes in detail the steps to clear memory using both standard Windows 7, 8 and 10 tools and third-party programs. Before you start reading and applying, remember how much memory you currently have free on drive C in order to compare with what you will have by the end of the article.

There are 3 groups of files occupying memory on the computer. Operating system files, installed program files and user files that we download, copy from other sources or create.

The operating system files contain files that can be safely deleted, thereby freeing up computer memory. What are these files: Temporary files, files in the recycle bin, swap file, hibernation file, system restore checkpoint files.

Temporary files

To delete temporary files, go to the Temp folder. One is located at “C:\Windows\Temp” and the second “C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp”

Emptying the Trash

Files that are in the Recycle Bin still take up space on your computer's disks, so don't forget to empty the Recycle Bin.

Did you know that files can be deleted without placing them in the trash? To do this, when deleting, you need to hold down the “Shift” key. In this case, the files are destroyed immediately.

Reducing the Pagefile.sys file

The page file in Windows is called pagefile.sys and it cannot be simply deleted. This file is used by Windows 7 as an extension of your RAM. If your computer has little RAM installed, then the file does not need to be touched. But if, for example, you have 4 GB of RAM or more, then you can free up some disk space by reducing the size of the pagefile.sys file

To do this, in Windows 10, open the computer properties. To get there, go to Explorer (win + E), go to the “This PC” section, select “properties” from the right-click menu.

Click the "Options" button in the "Performance" section, which is located on the "Advanced" tab

Go to the!Advanced tab! and click the "Change" button

Uncheck “Automatically select paging file size” and pay attention to the inscription at the bottom “Current size”. If it is less than 400 MB, it is not recommended to specify an even smaller size.

To reduce the paging file, click on the “Specify size” item, enter 400 and 800 MB in the “Initial size” and “Maximum size” fields, respectively, click the “Set” and “Ok” button. Next, you need to restart your computer and you will see that there is free space on drive C. On Windows 7, operations are performed exactly the same.

Delete the hiberfil.sys file

Now let's look at the hibernation file hiberfil.sys. Hibernation is a computer shutdown mode in which all open programs are saved to the hiberfil.sys file and the next time you start the computer, the computer turns on with the programs running. It was as if all programs were paused. Hibernation differs from sleep mode in that in it the computer can be disconnected from the network. In sleep mode, a power outage can cause problems.

Hence the conclusion - if you do not use this mode, and many people do not even know about it, then it is better to disable it and free up disk space. Typically, the hiberfil.sys file is equal to the amount of RAM installed on the computer. For some it is 4gb, for others it is more. For example, I have 32gb and, of course, I disabled hibernation.

To do this, you need to open a command prompt as an administrator. Click Start - All Programs - Accessories - Command Prompt - Run as Administrator - Yes

In Windows 10, you can click on the magnifying glass and start typing the word “command” and it will immediately be found.

In the black window that opens, enter the following command

powercfg.exe -h off

and press Enter

The hiberfil.sys file has been deleted and several gigabytes of disk memory have been freed up, let's move on.

Restore points

Recovery checkpoints are a useful tool. It allows you, if problems arise, to roll back the computer to the state when the checkpoint was created. But if there is very little memory, you can free it by deleting these points.

To do this, open properties in the “My Computer” window and click on the “advanced system settings” link on the left.

Go to the “System Protection” tab, then select drive C from the list and click the “configure” button.

In the window that opens, you can either delete all recovery points, thereby freeing up memory on the computer, and leave “Protection” to continue working.

Or disable this feature completely, in which case checkpoints will no longer be created in the future.

Old OS folders and error folders

You can also delete unnecessary files in the following folders on your computer:
“C:\Windows.old” - this folder is created when you reinstall Windows without formatting the C drive and contains the Windows and Program Files folders from the previous OS. If you don’t need anything in them, delete them (free up 20+ GB)
“C:\Found.000”, “C:\Found.001”, etc. — these folders are created by the disk check utility when errors are detected on drive C.

Removing programs

Unused programs also take up disk space and deleting them can free up some memory, it all depends on the size of the programs. On Windows 7, open “My Computer” and click the “Uninstall or change a program” button at the top.

A list of all installed programs will open, go through the list and remove unnecessary ones. It is advisable to start with the heaviest ones.

Windows 10 has two program stores. You can get into one of them as follows. Right-click on Start and select Control Panel

The second repository for programs downloaded from the store is located at: Start - Settings

Applications and features.

There is also an “Offline maps” item nearby - if there are any, deleting them will help free up disk space.

User data

First of all, go through the folder My Documents, Videos, Images and Music. They may contain folders of programs that we have already deleted. Check if they contain anything you need, if not, delete such folders.

To make it easier to figure out which folders and files take up the most disk space, I recommend using the WinDirStat program, its description will be below.

Moving the My Documents folder

Another way to free up space on your hard drive is to move the My Documents folder to another drive. To do this, go to the folder “C:\Users\username” or “C:\Users\username”. You will see many folders.

Open the properties of the My Documents folder

go to the "Location" tab and click "Move"

select a folder on another drive, for example drive D. To avoid confusion, I recommend calling it “My Documents”.

Click "OK" or "Apply"

Confirm moving the files to the new folder.

Wait until the My Documents folder is moved to another drive.

Similarly, you can increase the free space on drive C in Windows 10. For even greater effect, you can move folders to another drive:
"Downloads" - Downloads
"Desktop" - Desktop
“Videos” - My videos
“Pictures” - My images

Enlargement of drive C at the expense of drive D

If after all these steps enough memory has not been freed up, then you can take a different path and increase drive C at the expense of drive D; I’ll talk about this in a separate article.

Disk cleaning programs

There are many good programs for cleaning your system from unnecessary files. I recommend using them only when necessary. The disk is full - there is not enough memory, install one of the programs, clean the disk, and then remove it. There is no need to fanatically delete 100-200kb of temporary files using programs every day.

Standard Disk Cleanup

The program is included in Windows, but like all standard programs, it performs tasks at a minimum. However, you can use it to clean up the disk a little.

To run it, you need to open the properties of drive C and click the “disk cleanup” button.

CCleaner

With it, you don’t have to delve into the question of how to clear memory on your computer; the program already knows which files can be deleted without harm to the operating system. You just need to launch it, select the necessary items and start cleaning.

But check the boxes carefully. The program can delete typed addresses in the browser, history, and even window sizes. After cleaning you will have to get used to it again.

WinDirStat

The program scans your computer's drives and visually shows which files and folders take up the most memory. With its help, you can quickly remove the largest folders from unnecessary ones.

Without it, you would have to manually go into the folders and open the properties each time, evaluate how much deleting this or that folder will help, in general, you would have spent a lot of time and effort.

Glary utilities 5

This is a whole package of utilities for computer maintenance. This program has a good data analyzer that can be deleted.

There is also an uninstallation manager in which you can select all the programs that you want to remove by ticking and with one click start the process of freeing memory from them.

Unlocker

When deleting some files and folders, you may encounter “no rights” or “file open in another program” problems. In this case, Unlocker will unlock the file and it will be quietly deleted.

What to do to prevent disk C from getting clogged

Use uninstaller programs. When you install programs and then uninstall them, some files remain stored on your disk. The uninstaller ensures that programs, after uninstallation, do not leave unnecessary files and folders in the registry.

How to completely clean your computer hard drive

This may be necessary when you sell a computer or laptop and want to permanently erase data without the possibility of recovery. After normal deletion and even formatting, data can be restored in some cases. You need to use the Drive Wiper function in CCleaner.

Well, if you need to delete files from time to time without the possibility of recovery, it is more convenient to use the free Free File Wiper program.

Conclusion

Many users have a problem - no space on drive C. There may be several reasons: there are a lot of “weighty” files and folders on the desktop, there are a lot of installed programs in the system, the system has been updated, the “my documents” folder is full, downloading files from the Internet is done by default on the C drive, etc. Disk C is the system drive and, as a rule, does not have a lot of space (at best, 30 GB or even less). In this article we will look at several ways to free up disk space in Windows 7.

This article contains the simplest ways to free up space on your system drive. Do all the steps in the order they are given below. If the next step you take helps free up enough space, you don’t have to do the remaining steps.

Step 1 – delete temporary files

In the very first step, you need to delete all temporary files. Temporary files are needed for the correct operation of applications and should be automatically deleted after operation. But this does not always happen, and they accumulate in the \Temp\ folder and take up quite a lot of space. You can find the temporary file storage using this path: C:\Users\(Username) \AppData\Local\Temp\.Delete all the contents of the\Temp\ folder.

For more thorough cleaning of drive C, you can use standard functions: C:\ –> properties –> general –> disk cleanup. Mark “at your discretion” for anything that needs to be cleared.

Step 2 - transfer all user files to another drive

Move all your files from your desktop and other folders on the system drive to other media. Make sure that the files downloaded from the Internet are transferred to another drive. Configure bootloaders to use any other drive to store downloads.

Step 3 – remove unnecessary programs

Remove all unnecessary programs installed on your computer. This must be done through the standard Add/Remove Programs function. You can find it using the following path: Start –> Control Panel –> Uninstall Programs. Center the list by size and determine which programs you no longer need. To remove an unnecessary program, select it in the list and click “remove”.

Step 4 - disable sleep mode or hibernation (file hiberfil.sys)

If you are still not satisfied with the results of the previous actions, you can change some system settings. Namely, you need to disable hibernation (unless, of course, you use it). Hybrid sleep mode Sleep and Hibernation is a low power consumption mode. All open documents and programs are saved to the hard drive, and then the computer is turned off. How to disable hibernation – Start -> Control Panel -> System and Security -> Power Options -> Set up a power plan. In the “Sleep” tab, you need to disable the use of “Hybrid Sleep Mode”. After the reboot, the hiberfil.sys file will be deleted from drive “C” and quite a lot of space will be freed up. Read more about these modes on the manufacturer's website: microsoft.com

Step 5 – reduce or delete the swap file (pagefile.sys file)

There is another way to free up space on drive C. We can reduce the size or completely disable the paging file (Windows virtual memory). Thus, you can free up 1–3 GB of memory. For more details, see the article Windows 7 pagefile.sys, what this file is and how to delete it. After the pagefile.sys file is deleted from the C drive, quite a lot of space will be freed up.

Step 6 - increase space on drive C

There is another way - literally increase disk space. If you have very little space on your system disk (less than 25GB), then this method can help increase disk space and solve your problems. You can independently increase the size of the system partition using Windows 7 using these instructions.