Part
0 |
How to easily free up hard disk space |
Hard drive full? Want to get rid of the junk but don't know what to delete? In this post we'll walk through quickly and easily finding and deleting large unwanted files. In the end we'll take a look at how much space we've reclaimed.
What we'll cover:
- Running an overall performance scan
- Checking the performance scan results
- Running a detailed scan
- Removing unwanted files creating disk space
- Before and after comparison
Part
1 |
Running an overall performance scan |
1
The first things we need to is get our tools ready. Run the WIMPS Performance Rescue tool from your desktop.
- If you don't already have a copy of the WIMPS Performance Rescue tool, then download it from here. It's currently free.
- If you're not familiar with downloading and installing a program, check out this article here
2
Make sure you're logged in (if you don't have an account just go ahead and create one)
Click the New Scan button on the left toolbar. This will start a new scan, so sit back and let it do it's thing!
3
When the scan has completed pay attention to the Disk Summary Area. This will show you:
- How full your hard drive is
- Your top 5 disk usage items
From here let's take a closer look at what's going on by clicking on the DISK chart
Part
2 |
Checking the performance scan results |
1
On the left hand side of the Disk Usage screen is a scrolling list. The list shows you easy places to start looking for things to either delete or move to another device (your screen will have different values depending on your disk usage)
Let's start by clicking on the My Documents entry in the list
2
It looks like My Documents is using 47.8 GB. The size of the orange bar next to the folder shows us visually the size of the space being used. This makes it easy to spot the biggest folders.
There's nothing really in My Documents I want to delete, but I did see that the Recycle Bin is using 3% - this is an easy win. It won't solve our disk space problems entirely, but every little helps.
Let switch over to file explorer and empty the recycle bin to start our cleaning journey
3
Emptying the recycle bin is a quick way to reclaim space
I can still see that 94% of the disk is being used outside of these "easy folders". To see a complete picture, let's run a Detailed Full Usage Scan
Part
3 |
Running a Detailed Scan |
1
From any of the three location in the picture above click to run a full scan. A full scan can take up to 2 minutes on a big disk, so the program asks to confirm. Click "Start Scan" to continue. Wait for the scan to complete.
2
When the scan has completed we can see something very interesting. The biggest folder by far is Users - actually it's taking up more than 50% of the entire hard drive space. Clicking on the Users folder expands so we can investigate further.
3
If we keep on selecting the biggest folder we eventually come to the source of the problem. One folder with 349 GB - over 30% of our hard disk space is in one folder!!
if we're able to get 30% disk space back in one place that's an easy win.
Let's switch over from the the WIMPS Performance Rescue tool and open up Windows Explorer to see the actual files.
(if you're unfamiliar with this process read this article to get a head's up)
4
So here we have a solution to our problem. 94GB in one single file - and there are quite a few in other sibling folders.
Mystery solved!!
At this point we know we understand the problem. So let's find the solution.
Part 4 |
Removing unwanted files and creating disk space |
We know what we want to be rid of.
So should we just delete those files?
I have some general rules I follow when doing drive clean-ups:
DON'T DELETE things from
- C:\Windows
- C:\Program Files
- C:\Program Files (x86)
- C:\ProgramData
(If you want to delete things from Program Files you need to uninstall the programs from the Add/Remove Programs app in Control Panel)
DON'T DELETE the large files used by Windows itself
- C:\hiberfil.sys
- C:\pagefile.sys
- C:\swapfile.sys
(although turning off hibernation will remove the hiberfil.sys file if you don't use hybernation)
Do delete WITH CAUTION from
C:\Users\Your Logon
This is exactly what we're doing in this example. My Logon is malco, so I'm deleting from C:\User\malco. This is my profile folder, and everything inside it should be mine (there may be other people using computer don't forget)
** Be careful of the AppData folder. Although it is tempting to delete from here it has been noted that a lot of programs keep their configuration and running data in these folders. Deleting from inside AppData may stop programs from working correctly.
Top Tip: If you don't know what it is, back it up to before deleting it.
Do delete with backups if you're worried about losing files from
- My Documents
- My Pictures
- My Videos
- Downloads
Most of the drive clutter ends up in one of these four places. They end up as general buckets, and usually the files there are of a personal nature and have nothing to do with how Windows or the Installed Programs on it run.
That said, once those files are gone, they're gone, so backing them up or syncing them to cloud storage is advisable. Google Drive is a useful candidate for this, especially for images in the My Pictures folder.
Now that we know the ground rules, let's move forward
1
Before we send these files to bit heaven, let's perform one last optional paranoia check. Let's finally check at least what these files are for.
Why you may ask? Because sometimes the files belong to an application that is expecting the files to be in a certain place. When we go ahead and obliterate them, that program may stop working.
Right clicking the file in Windows Explorer and selecting properties brings up the file details.
From the properties we can see that files are virtual disk images. You will probably have different file types, but often you will recognize the type of program that these files belong to. Even if you don't that's fine, this is an optional check.
2
From these properties I know the program that opens these files. I now know I don't want to completely delete them, but I do want them off my computer as they're taking up far too much space.
I'm going to copy them onto a USB drive before I delete them from my hard disk. I can then move them back if I ever need them again.
3
Finally! Delete the those files! In the above image I'm deleting the entire folder as I backed it all up in the previous step.
Important!!
PRESS SHIFT + DEL
(hold down the shift key before highlighting the files you want to delete and hitting the Del key)
If you don't hold down the Shift key before pressing Del your files will end up in the recycle bin. This will take up space again and defeat the purpose of the exercise.
Part 5 |
Before and after comparison |
1
To check your work, run a New Scan. In this case we now have 87% full capacity. Based on the size of the underlying hard disk, the program considers this "very good"
2
To check the comaparison between old and new scores, click on the My Scans button on the left toolbar. In the example we have gained a 3% increase in our performance score. We have one less serious notification as well, which is a plus!
