Every PC user has at least once encountered the problem of low disk space. When such a situation occurs, a person begins to frantically remember what information he will no longer need and what can be deleted in order to make the next update or install the necessary program. Famous tweakers and cleaners may be able to help you, but they often do not work very correctly.
In this article you will learn about Windows 7 (64-bit system).
Removing junk using Disk Cleanup
How to completely clean up drive C (Windows 7) so as not to disrupt the operation of the disk" - this is one of the safest programs among all the tools that help get rid of computer garbage. You can use it to clean HDD, but it is almost impossible to delete something important, since a warning signal will be received. Other utilities offer quick cleaning, but cannot offer any security guarantees.
To understand how to clear drive C (Windows 7) from unnecessary files Thanks to the Disk Cleanup function, you need to understand what this function is for. With its help, the number of those files that for a long time have not been used, but are on the hard drive. Such measures lead to increased computer efficiency. All temporary and unused system files will be deleted and the Recycle Bin will be emptied.
You need to start working by launching the program. To do this, go to “Start”, select “All Programs”, go to “Accessories”, “System Tools”, and then click “Disk Cleanup”. In the "Disk Cleanup Options" window that opens, you should select what you want to do: clean up personal files or all files that are on the device. If you are prompted for a password, you must enter it.
In the window you need to go to “Select disk” and determine which disk will be cleaned. After that, click “OK” and check the boxes next to the selected files. This action must be taken responsibly so as not to delete important files. After this, you must confirm the cleaning.
The Advanced tab includes two more methods that let you free up space on your hard drive. But it is only available if the option to delete files for all device users is selected.
The next step leading to knowledge of how to clean up drive C (Windows 7) is opening the “Programs and Features” item, which is located in the Control Panel. In it you can delete everything that is not used. In the "Size" column you can see how much disk space each program takes up.
With System Restore, you can use restore points to go back to an earlier state to restore your system files. If your computer is functioning properly, you can delete previous revert points to save disk space.
Removing "garbage" manually
To know how to properly clear drive C (Windows 7) of unnecessary files manually, you need to have information about where the temporary folders are located. They can be found at the following addresses: "%windir%\Temp" or "%ProgramData%\TEMP". For everyone using the device, it is "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Temp".
Files located in these folders can be deleted without problems. If you try to uninstall an important and necessary program, Windows will not allow you to do so.
Windows Search Services and file reduction
Cleaning up drive C (Windows 7) can be done using the Windows Search Service; it caches all information about files on hard drives and transfers it to the database, which is located in the folder "%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows" \" and is called "Windows.edb".
The thing is that if the amount of data on hard drives increases, then the database file also increases. It can be several GB. Those users who do not use hard drive search very often can free up space using the following method, which will not only reduce the file, but also be able to monitor its size.
You need to enable "services.msc" and set "Window Search" to disabled. Then you should run it again. In the "Indexing Options" you need to click "Change" and select the appropriate mode, and then confirm all actions.
Working with file size
How to clean up drive C (Windows 7) and free up space on it? This can be done by reducing the volume and relocating it to another disk. The optimal sizes depend on the features of your device.
Cleaning the installation
Most updates that are installed on a computer tend to leave installation programs in a separate folder. This leads to its size increasing significantly. You should not completely delete these files; such a measure may lead to incorrect operation of the device. But if free space is urgently needed, then removing them will be the way out. In the future, you should use software distribution kits or remove applications.
Antivirus software
It is better to explain clearly using the example of the popular antivirus "ESET NOD32". When it finds infected files, it sends them to the “Quarantine” folder. Its location may vary, so you need to look at your specific computer.
If there are a huge number of such files, the folder size will increase. You can solve this situation by clearing the "Quarantine" folder.
Disabling sleep mode
There is a file "hiberfil.sys" on the system disk, which always takes up space. Depending on the configuration of your computer, it can reach different sizes. If you don't need hibernation, you can always turn it off. But you need to do this in sleep mode.
To do this, you must log into your computer using administrator rights. On the control panel you need to select "Go to sleep mode". You must click to create a shortcut. In the field that opens, enter "powercfg -h off". Then confirm your actions. Next, you should run the shortcut as an administrator and agree to the actions in the “UAC” request.
Another useful tip is how to clean up the C drive (Windows 7) to free up space on the system partition. In order to get rid of possible problems in the future, it is necessary to monitor the availability of free space. This applies to user folders.
For this method to work, you need to have several hard drives or partitions on them that will be located on the same computer. It is more advisable to carry out this procedure immediately after reinstalling Windows. This is due to the fact that there should always be free space left, which is necessary for defragmentation. It can be carried out either automatically or if necessary. Defragmentation not only reduces wear and tear on the hard drive, but also improves the performance of the computer as a whole.
After installation (which requires drive C) of Windows 7, you need to create several system folders. They must be placed in the root directory. Some of them may not be displayed. But the necessary one, "Users", is always visible.
After entering this folder, you can see all the names. The number of users may vary depending on circumstances. You need to select the folder that is named after the user you need. This is where all the user data will be located.
Almost each of these folders will grow in size as you add photos and other files. If you pay attention to the picture, you can see which one is overfilled and requires cleaning.
It would be better to remove the folder that fills up as a result of various downloads. hard drive and move to another location. To do this, you need to cut it out and move it to the next disk, which has more free space. On this disk you need to create a folder with the user name and paste all the data there.
If there are many users, this procedure must be done for each. This will allow you to control the system partition and also improve the performance of the entire system.
Getting to know the utility
With CCleaner, you can not only clear the contents of the recycle bin, the cache of OS components and browsers, but also remove from the disk unnecessary files created by the system, for example, a previous version of Windows, remaining after updating or reinstalling the system. The program can also clean the disk from duplicates and large files no worse than the popular Duplicate Killer and Duplicate File Finder utilities, which is also important for gaining additional space. You can delete whatever you want, the main thing is to carry out proper configuration.
Selecting parameters
On the main screen of Sikliner you will see a list of functions and applications that leave a cache in the Windows directory. This includes both browsers and completely different programs - archivers, photo and video viewers, etc. It is noteworthy that the context menu sets additional parameters for each component. For example, you can clear the Opera cache, but leave forms autofilled so as not to re-enter data on sites. Study the list carefully and check the boxes. Then move on to analysis.
Cleaning
The program will analyze the components fairly quickly, but if maintenance has not been carried out for several years, the cleaning process may take long time. When clearing the contents, remember that to complete the operation correctly, it is better to first close all applications except CCleaner, and then reboot. If you want to free more more space, launch the program again after turning on the PC.
Removing programs and duplicates
Go to the Service tab. There are at least 3 interesting features here. Disk analysis will show you which files are taking up precious space. It will help a lot in cleaning local disk D is usually filled with movies, music and photos. You can also go through the disks with the duplicate search utility to remove movies, books, games, etc. that have been downloaded 3 times. The final touch to optimizing the system partition is deleting unused programs. Select unnecessary ones from the list, right-click and click “Delete” to get rid of the application forever.
In this article we will look at various ways Cleaning the disk and freeing up space on it in any operating system Windows XP, 7, 8.1, 10.
1. Where does disk space go?
During the process of computer operation, system updates, installation of programs, visiting websites and other actions, many unnecessary files accumulate on the disk, which are often called garbage or junk. In addition, we often download some files ourselves, and then, when they are no longer needed, we forget about them.
Extra files not only take up disk space, but also reduce system performance. The disk takes longer to search for the necessary files, and some of them may take up space in random access memory and use CPU resources. In addition, viruses often like to live in temporary files.
For stable, fast and reliable operation of your computer, you must keep the disk clean and tidy. Nowadays, the problem of lack of space on SSD drives, the volume of which is very limited, is also relevant.
In this article we will try to comprehensively solve the problem of lack of disk space. To achieve good results, we recommend that you read the entire article and follow all the tips in the order in which they are presented.
2. Removing unnecessary programs and games
First of all, remove all programs and games that you no longer need. This will not only free up disk space, but will also speed up the system.
Press the “Win+R” key combination, enter “appwiz.cpl” and press “Enter” or use the “Uninstall programs” shortcut from the “ ” section.
In the window that opens, carefully review the list of installed programs and games and remove all that you are unlikely to use in the near future.
To remove a program, right-click on it and select “Delete”.
Do not delete anything whose purpose you do not understand or if you are not sure.
After that, manually find and delete the save folders of the deleted games, as they can take up a lot of space. You can easily find out where the saves of a particular game are by searching on the Internet.
Many Online Games They also save their distributions (installation packages) during updates, which are no longer needed, but at the same time take up a lot of space. For example, game center Mail.Ru saves distributions in the “Distrib” folder, and the “World of Tanks” game in the “Updates” subfolder. Files in such folders can occupy tens of gigabytes and can be safely deleted.
3. Find and delete unnecessary files
It often happens that some old unnecessary files take up a lot of disk space, but we forgot about them and don’t know where they are. In order to find them, I recommend using the “TreeSize Free” utility, which you can download in the “” section.
After launch, the program will scan your disk, determine the sizes of files and folders and sort them by size.
This way you can easily determine which folder contains the files that take up the most space. Delete any files you no longer need. If you think you might still need some of them, burn them to disk. Selecting the disk to scan (C, D, etc.) is done in the “Scan” menu.
4. Transferring user files and folders
If you have a second disk or partition (for example, disk “D”), then first of all transfer to it all files from the desktop and user folders such as “My Documents”, “My Music”, “My Videos”, etc. ., since they are all physically located on the “C” drive.
You can move files manually by creating folders for them on another drive or partition in advance. But it is more correct to change the location of the user’s folders using the operating system. Then all new files that you or any programs save on the desktop and in user folders will automatically end up on another disk partition, without causing the system partition to overflow.
4.1. Transfer user folders to Windows 7, 8.1, 10
Go to the folder “C:\Users\Name”.
Right-click on the “My Documents” folder and go to the “Location” tab.
Replace the drive letter with the one where you want to move the folder (for example, "D") and click OK.
Agree to move the files, and then repeat all the steps for the Desktop folder and other user folders.
4.2. Transfer user folders in Windows XP
In Windows XP there is no function for automatically moving user folders and we will use a special utility “XP Tweaker”, which you can download in the “” section.
Install the utility and run it. Then in the left pane, select the “Windows XP” section and go to the “System Folders” tab.
Select the "My Documents" folder with the mouse, change the drive letter to the one where you want to move the folder (for example, "D") and click the "Change" button.
Follow the same steps for the “My Pictures”, “My Music”, “Desktop” folders.
After that, go to the folder “C:\Documents and Settings\Name”.
And manually move the “My Documents” and “Desktop” folders to the new location “D:\Documents and Settings\Name”.
5. Disk cleanup using Windows
In all Windows versions There is a disk cleanup function. Using it, you can clean up any partition of the disk (C, D, etc.), but it is most effective for cleaning the system partition (drive “C”), since this is where most temporary files are stored.
Right-click on drive “C” and select “Properties”.
Click the Disk Cleanup button.
Click the "Clean up system files" button (Windows 7, 8.1, 10).
Check all the boxes and you will see how much space will be freed up when deleting temporary files.
The volume of temporary files can reach 5-10 GB. Click the "OK" button and all temporary files will be deleted.
6. Deleting the hibernation file
The hibernation file (hiberfil.sys), which can be close in size to the amount of RAM, is located on the “C” drive and is used for sleep mode. If you do not use this mode, but turn your computer on and off in the usual way every time, then this file can be safely deleted, since it takes up a lot of space.
The system will not allow you to manually delete this file, and even if you do this using a special utility for deleting files, the system will create it again. Therefore, to correctly delete the hibernation file, you need to disable sleep mode.
Run command line as administrator and run the following command:
Powercfg -h off
After this, the system itself will delete this file and will no longer create it.
If you don’t know how to work with the command line or don’t want to bother, you can download the “Deleting a hibernation file” command file in the “” section.
All you have to do is right-click on it and run it as Administrator (except for Windows XP).
7. Disable or change the page file size
The paging file (pagefile.sys), which can be one and a half times the size of RAM, is located on drive “C” and is used by many programs to compensate for the lack of RAM.
If you have a fairly large amount of RAM and a small “C” drive (for example, an SSD), many enthusiasts advise disabling the page file.
In the window that opens, go to the “Advanced” tab and in the “Performance” section, click the “Options” button.
In Performance Options, go to the Advanced tab and click the Change button.
Uncheck “Automatically select paging file size”, check the “No paging file” checkbox and click “OK”.
After restarting the computer, the paging file will be deleted and a lot of space will be freed up on the C drive.
But keep in mind that the system’s operation is tightly tied to the page file, and some programs may not even have enough 8 GB of RAM. Therefore, out of memory errors may begin to appear.
You can try completely disabling the paging file if you have 16 GB or more of RAM, but I still would not recommend doing this.
Hard drive A-Data Ultimate SU650 120GB8. Disabling System Restore
The recovery service makes backup copies of system files and stores them in a special hidden folder, which can take up a lot of disk space. At the same time, the built-in recovery tool does not always work correctly, and viruses like to hide in the backup folder.
Press the “Win+R” key combination, enter “sysdm.cpl” and press “Enter” or use the “System Properties” shortcut from the “ ” section.
In the window that opens, go to the “System Protection” tab, select the “C” drive and click the “Configure” button.
Check the “Disable system protection” checkbox and click “OK”.
After this, all backup copies of system files will be deleted and additional disk space will be freed up. This way you can free up 5-10 GB of valuable space on drive “C”.
9. Disabling the Recycle Bin
You can disable the Recycle Bin on drive “C” so that it does not take up space on it. To do this, right-click on the trash can icon and select “Properties”.
Set the “C” drive to “Destroy files immediately after deletion” and click “OK.”
After this, if you delete large files from folders with game distributions or any other, they will not end up in the trash and will not take up space on the “C” drive.
10. Cleaning up your backup storage
To clear the system file backup storage in Windows 8, 8.1, 10, I recommend running the following command at the command line as Administrator.
Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
For this purpose, you can also download the “Cleaning backup storage” command file in the “” section and execute it as Administrator.
11. Deleting temporary folders
You can painlessly delete temporary folders left after installing some drivers and programs:
C:\AMD C:\ATI C:\CONFIG.MSI C:\Intel C:\MSOCache C:\NVIDIA C:\SWSetup
12. Automatic disk cleaning and acceleration
To automatically clean the disk from temporary files, there are special utilities. One of the best that I recommend is .
It can be configured to clear temporary files every time you boot your computer, which will help maintain free space on the C drive and also give you some additional protection, since temporary folders are a favorite place for viruses.
But you need to configure it correctly, otherwise this utility will not clean up what you need, but leave what you need to remove. Since the utility’s settings are quite extensive and it has many additional useful functions, I decided to talk about it separately in the next article.
13. Links
Hard drive A-Data Ultimate SU650 240GB
Hard drive Transcend StoreJet 25M3 1 TB
Hard drive Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EZEX 1 TB
Many users find themselves in a situation where the hard drive is not enough free space, and such a shortage may be caused by technical reasons. Temporary files and caches of various programs gradually accumulate on the hard drive. There are also files uploaded by the user himself, but no longer needed. All this over time can lead to a lack of space and insufficient computer performance. From this article you will learn how to quickly free up space on your hard drive without losing any necessary information.
"Disk Cleanup": using standard operating system tools
This cleaning program is present by default in Windows and is launched from the “ Start" Just go through the sequence of tabs " All programs» — « Standard» — « Service" You can also go to the disk properties and select the utility there. After that, it will automatically scan your hard drive and offer a list of files recommended for deletion.
The problem with this type of cleaning is that it cannot remove all unnecessary files, especially temporary ones. It is better to do them manually, or use special software. The peculiarity of temporary files is that many of them belong to the system category, and therefore are not displayed by default. To see them, you need to perform the following sequence of actions: open Explorer, go through the tabs " View» — « Folders settings» — « View", then mark " Show hidden files and folders" At the same time, you need to remove " ticks» with items about hiding extensions and protected system files.
After this, you can delete unnecessary files manually. You need to look for them in the following folders (provided that operating system installed on drive C):
- C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
- C:\Windows\Downloaded Installations\
- C:\Users\Username\Local Settings\Temp
- C:\Users\Default User\Local Settings\Temp
- C:\Users\LocalService\Local Settings\Temp
If you don't need hibernation, it's better to disable it completely. When the PC enters hibernation, all necessary data is saved in a special file. If this file is missing, up to 3 gigabytes of free space will be freed on your hard drive. You can disable hibernation with the command " powercfg.exe /hibernate off"(entered into the command line, the user must have administrator rights). If deleting through the command did not work, you need to find a file on drive C called “ Hiberfil.sys" and remove it yourself.
Other disk cleanup software
Manual deletion or standard Disk Cleanup can be of great benefit, but with temporary files generated by third-party applications, this usually does not help. In particular, this concerns the browser cache, because it constantly grows and can eventually occupy several gigabytes. Saving the cache speeds up loading sites and reduces traffic, but in high-speed conditions unlimited internet There is little benefit from accelerated loading - the user simply will not notice the difference.
To make cleaning your hard drive of temporary files more effective, you can use third-party applications. One of the most popular today is. This application can delete any files, including OS system files.
User data also needs to be “cleaned” periodically. Many computer owners save such files to the desktop or leave them in "Downloads", but this is not the best option– it is better not to leave such data on the system drive, especially if the files are large and take up a lot of space. It is recommended to place large files on other partitions.
Using the tips above, you can work with your computer without worrying about free space on your hard drive.
Ten years ago, when the operating room appeared and instantly gained popularity Windows system XP (official support for which is ending very soon), no one was particularly worried about the size of the system disk. 20-30 GB on disk "C" was enough to install both the system itself and for software. With the advent of Windows 7, PC owners for the first time were massively faced with the problem of lack of space on the system disk - this operating system itself occupied about 10 GB, and programs absorbed approximately the same amount, registering and constantly updating. The 20-25 GB system disk filled up very quickly. And many even had to resort to repartitioning their computer disks in order to increase the system disk at the expense of another disk.
To ensure that there is always enough free space on the system partition, it must be kept clean and tidy and periodically monitored to see if it is cluttered. If Windows reports that there is not enough free space on the system disk - usually on drive C - it's time to clean it up. Let's look at 7 ways to clean your system disk below: installed Windows 8.
Before you start cleaning up your disk, you need to remember how much free space you have on your disk. this moment. In the future, this will allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of the work done by comparing the initial and final figures.
1. Removing unnecessary files from the system disk
First, you need to check whether files are stored on the system disk that, in principle, may not be stored there - these are media files, folders with documents, disk images, program installation files, etc. All this can be transferred to a non-system drive; moreover, it is even recommended that all important files be stored on a non-system drive (D, E, etc.), so that if an unexpected system failure occurs and it has to be reinstalled, this data were not destroyed during formatting of the system disk.
As a rule, all files downloaded from the Internet are stored in download folders assigned by default by browsers on the system drive. To prevent the system drive from becoming cluttered with downloaded files in the future, you need to assign a different folder for downloads in the browser settings, but on a non-system drive.
Under no circumstances should you transfer system files to another drive, which means that you better avoid the Windows folder on the tenth route.
To search for media files and documents, you can use Windows Search and set search criteria for the desired file types within the system drive.
Check the found files further, cut out the necessary ones and paste them on a non-system drive using the context menu, and simply delete the unnecessary ones.
Remove all those programs and games that you do not use. As a rule, after removing large resource-intensive games, quite a lot of space is freed up. To correctly remove software and clean the system from remaining traces, use special software - uninstallers.
Here are some popular uninstallers:
- Your Uninstaller;
- Revo Uninstaller.
3. Windows Disk Cleanup service
The Windows operating system is equipped with a standard service that analyzes the space on the system disk and identifies files that can be deleted to free up space without causing harm to the system.
In Windows 8 Explorer, open “My Computer” and open the context menu on the system drive. At the end of the list, click “Properties”, and in the window that appears, click the “Disk Cleanup” command. In the “Disk Cleanup” window, check the boxes next to the files that you want to delete - Recycle Bin files, temporary files in Temp folders, temporary Internet files, etc.
Then click “Clean up system files.”
4. Manually cleaning Temp folders
If the system disk is not periodically cleaned, up to 5-6 GB can accumulate in the Temp folders over a long period of time. And the Windows Disk Cleanup service, as a rule, deletes only some of the files from these folders. Temp folders can be cleaned manually by completely deleting their contents.
What is the “Temp” folder for in general? Temporary files are stored there that Windows and various programs installed on the computer create for their work. Most of these files become unnecessary over time because they are not used in work.
Temp folders are hidden, and the easiest way to get to one of them is using standard Windows Explorer, or the popular Total Commander file manager, since most builds of this program have a pre-installed “Hidden Items” button in the toolbar. It displays all hidden files and folders on the system. Click this button and open the root folder of the system in Total Commander and find the “Temp” folder there:
You can open the “Temp” folder in the same path in standard Windows Explorer, but before that you also need to configure the display of hidden folders.
In Windows 7, click the Start button, then Control Panel, then Appearance and Personalization, then Folder Options. In Windows 8, you can get to the “Folder Options” section directly from the “Control Panel”.
In the “Folder Options” window that opens, immediately go to the “View” tab and check the “Show hidden folders, files and drives” option in the additional settings.
Then click "Apply" and "OK".
In the “Temp” folder, select all existing files and press “Shift + Delete” so that the files are completely deleted from the computer, bypassing the “Trash”.
But there is more than one “Temp” folder on the computer: in addition to the one located in the Windows root folder, another “Temp” folder can also be found in user files on the system drive:
C:\Users\Name account Windows\AppData\Local\Temp.
You can follow this path in a file manager or Windows Explorer, but it is much easier to enter the command %TEMP% in the address bar of Explorer and press the Enter key.
Select all the files that are there and delete them.
Not all files from this “Temp” folder will be deleted, some of them may be currently used for the operation of the system and programs, so just skip them.