How to free up excess disk space. How to clean a disk from garbage

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Ugly picture? It got to the point where he had 2 GB of 58 GB of free meta on disk (C). I deleted everything I could and moved the rest to disk (D). It didn’t help for long, the next day the same picture happened again. They began to deal with him. For old times sake, I immediately installed the Free Disk Analyzer program on his computer. The program is easy to configure, the interface is in Russian, and it is free. Free Disk Analyzer quickly analyzed all the disks on your computer. And he produced this picture.

Now you need to click on the disk you need and Free Disk Analyzer will show how much space and which folder is taking up space.

It turned out that the “System Volume Information” folder occupied half of the disk space. It is clear that an increase in the volume of the folder also led to a decrease in the volume of disk (C). In general, where did this System Volume Information folder come from and what does it contain?

We all want to take care of protecting our OS; in addition to installing antiviruses, we also set up system recovery. Read more about system recovery (rollback) in my article. When installing some programs and uninstalling them, when installing updates from Microsoft, we create system restore points.

How many of them can be created? But here it all depends on the user settings. By default, when you install a new system, you have 3% of disk space allocated for recovery. 3% is not much, so recovery points do not last long. It’s a shame, what if there’s some kind of problem, so I want the restore points to be saved longer. So my unfortunate friend gave as much as 55% to restore the system.

Each restore point captures the state of the system at a specific point in time. All this data remains on the hard drive, thereby filling up a considerable amount of space, and all this information is stored in the System Volume Information folder. Somehow I had to read other people’s very abstruse advice on how to clean out this folder. But I did a simpler thing with a friend’s computer - I entered system restore and deleted all the created restore points.

To do this, you just had to click the “Delete” button. Then I moved the slider, setting the value to 5%.

In the empty line of the window that opens, you can enter any word in Russian or Latin, or a number. Clicked “Create” here too.

Once you have completed creating a manual restore point. I opened the computer.

Nowadays, the power of modern computers can be said to have reached its limit, since they can perform tasks of any complexity (from simple calculations on a calculator to creating complex graphic images).

But, sooner or later, the user feels that the machine has become slower and the system response time has increased.

What can you delete from drive C to free up space on Windows 7?

Installed programs

Of course, the largest segment of memory on the disk is occupied by all kinds of programs that the user installed and after a while stopped using them, forgetting about them.

To view their list, click: Start - Control Panel - Uninstall Programs. This command menu also allows you to completely delete your selected files.

It is important to know: as practice shows, in this way, you can clear several gigabytes of disk memory at a time.

Emptying the Trash

The Recycle Bin is a temporary storage for deleted files. A separate memory segment in the computer is allocated for it, which can become clogged over time. To delete all files from this storage you need to: Select the appropriate icon – Right-click on it – Select the context menu “Empty Trash”.

It is important to know: files larger than 10 Gigabytes are immediately deleted, bypassing the recycle bin (they cannot be restored later).

Downloads folder

On your computer you can watch movies, play games and do many other operations that require the installation of additional programs, and if you are used to downloading them all through torrent trackers, then in the Downloads folder there are a lot of unnecessary files that take up precious space on the system.

As a rule, you can find this pack in the following path: My Computer – Left Dock Bar – Download Folder. When you open it, you will probably find a lot of files, images and music. You can delete them in a few clicks. To do this you need to do the following:

select all files;
place them in the cart;
empty the trash.

It is important to know: but before deleting the contents in the folder, it is recommended that you carefully review all the files, since there is a high probability that you may delete something you need.

To ensure proper operation of all programs in Windows OS there is a Temp pack, where all temporary files are stored after installing programs. For example, there may be additional antivirus software and the like, but after these programs have been removed, residual files take up disk space.

In order to fix this you need to follow the path: My computer – drive C – Windows – Temp(after deleting all the contents, you must empty the trash can).

It is important to know: the folder may contain files that cannot be deleted. Of course, you can skip them, but if you need a complete cleanup of the system, they can be removed using special utilities (for example, Unlocker), which unlock this feature in one click.

You can clear disk space using the built-in utility. To do this you need to open:

my PC;
right-click on it and go to properties.

In front of you you will see an additional context menu, where in the General tab there will be a menu item Disk Cleanup.

By selecting this action, the computer will begin to automatically select files that it thinks are unnecessary, and after a few minutes of waiting, it will give you a whole list of files and programs, where you can, by checking a box, delete them.

It is important to know: this method is also relevant for other versions of Microsoft OS.

Paging files are a system file that is used to store individual parts of a program in cases where some data does not fit on the disk due to lack of space. As a rule, the system places small-gigabyte files there.

But swap files have one small catch: they cannot be deleted even with the help of special programs. But, it is possible to transfer them to disk, where there is much more space.

To do this, go to the following path: My Computer – Select the desired drive RMB – Properties – Additional system settings – Options – Advanced – Change – indicate the desired drive.

It is important to know: you won’t be able to transfer much from there, since as disk space becomes free, the operating system automatically moves files to the necessary partitions.

Hibernation Mode

Hibernation mode is a special built-in utility that allows you to turn off your computer and save all open programs without losing progress (that is, they work offline).

A similar effect can be achieved by running programs loading their cache onto the system disk, thereby clogging it. To disable this mode you need to do the following:

Start menu;
enter the command line in the search column;
A black dialog box opens in front of us, in which we need to enter: powercfg.exe -h off and press Enter.

It is important to know: after restarting your computer, you will find that there is significantly more space on the system disk.

Additional utilities

To clean up disk space, special software add-ons and utilities are used that are designed to completely remove files and other junk from the system. The CCleaner utility is quite popular in this segment.

You can download the utility from the official website and install it on your computer and get to work.

Important to know: CCleaner provides the full ability to delete all files manually or automatically.

Conclusion

This is the entire list of what can be deleted from the C drive to free up space on Windows 7. Well, so that the user does not have to waste his time removing unnecessary garbage, it is worth remembering the main rule of an experienced IT specialist - Do not install unnecessary programs and do not forget them delete!

Nowadays, one of the most valuable resources is memory. It stores files and programs necessary for work, leisure and entertainment. In computers, storage media are hard drives and their more modern analogues, solid-state drives. The classic option for allocating space on any computer is to allocate space for the operating system, where all programs are also installed, and to create partitions for storing photos, music, films and countless documents valuable to the user.

In the process of using a computer, a large number of different files are created on the system partition, which are necessary for the normal operating state of the operating system and its components. Many of them have an expiration date, which, upon expiration, makes previously created files completely useless. They take up valuable space, gradually filling up free space on the system partition, causing chaos in the file system.

The issue of saving space in partitions by destroying unnecessary data is quite relevant at the moment, so there are special utilities that can be finely tuned for maximum efficiency. Disk cleanup can also be performed using internal operating system tools, but first things first.

Method 1: CCleaner

There is probably no user who has not heard about this program. CCleaner is rightfully considered one of the simplest, but at the same time functional utilities for searching and removing temporary and irrelevant files from the system. There are a number of detailed settings that will help you customize this product completely to the user’s requirements, performing all the necessary operations.

The program has a paid and free version. The latter is suitable for us; it has all the necessary functionality and is not limited in time of use. You need to download the installation file from the developer’s official website, double-click it and install it on the system, following the installer’s instructions.
Open the program using the desktop shortcut. For convenience, install the Russian language by following the instructions in the screenshot below.

Now go to the first tab of the program. On the left side of CCleaner, in both tabs, you need to configure the items that need to be removed during cleaning. The program has a competent Russian translation, even an inexperienced user will immediately understand what needs to be cleared. By default, certain data is selected for deletion, which means you can start cleaning right away. But it is recommended to carefully study each proposed option to free up space as efficiently as possible.
After the settings have been completed, you can click on the button "Analysis", the program will scan the data specified to it and show the exact size of the files that it will delete. Don't be surprised if their size exceeds several gigabytes.

CCleaner has a built-in tool to fix errors in the system registry. At best, this will remove several kilobytes of unnecessary information, but will correct incorrect file associations, errors in startup and libraries, and check the functionality of services in the operating system. To search for errors in the registry, go to the second tab in the left panel of the program and at the bottom of the window, run the scan by clicking the button "Search for problems".

The program will check, it may take some time. After completion, the user will be presented with a list of problems found in the system. You can fix them using the button "Fix selected Issues".

You will be prompted to create a backup copy of the registry in case problems arise after the update. We confirm saving the copy.

Select a location to save the file. Its name will contain the date and exact time the backup was created.

After creating a backup, you can fix the problems found with one button.

The correction will also take some time, depending on the number of records found. We recommend that you restart your computer after the fix is complete.
A large number of rarely used programs may be installed on the system. Removing them will significantly increase the amount of free space on the system disk, speed up the computer boot time and reduce the load on the OS.
In the left menu, go to the tab "Service". A little to the right of this menu will appear a list of tools that will be useful to us in the future. The first tool on the list will be "Remove programs"- a fairly accurate copy of a standard utility in the Windows environment, which will display a list of programs and components installed on the system. Find the software that you do not need on your computer, right-click on its name and select "Uninstallation", then follow the instructions of the standard uninstall program. Repeat this step for each unnecessary program.

After removing all unnecessary programs, it is advisable to carry out the cleaning described in point 3.
Surely your browser has a large number of add-ons and plugins installed that you very rarely use. Not only do they take up space on the system disk, but they also significantly slow down the browser itself. Immediately carry out general cleaning using a tool "Browser Add-ons", which is located just below the previous one. If several browsers are installed on the system, you can navigate between the list of their add-ons in horizontal tabs.

To more clearly study the list of files that take up space on the system partition, you can use the utility "Disk Analysis". It allows you to use checkboxes to indicate the types of files that we need to find on the disk.

The scanning will take some time, after which the results will be displayed in the form of a simple diagram. In the list of categories you can view the percentage of available files, their total volume and number. When you select a specific category, just below you will see a list of these files in decreasing order of size - an ideal way to identify the scoundrels who are stealing free space from the user. Before analyzing the disks, it is strongly recommended that you clean up temporary files, which was described in point 3 - the program finds a huge number of files that are currently located in temporary folders and will soon be deleted. The information is correct, but useless.
Once the cleaning is complete, all temporary files of the operating system and programs installed on the computer will be deleted. They take up most of the space, but with CCleaner you can free up even more space by removing duplicate files. Identical files may appear if, instead of moving from one directory to another, the files were copied. It is useless to keep two copies of the same data, but they can take up a lot of space.
Here you will have to be careful. If identical files are found in the directory of a program, then it is better to refrain from deleting it so as not to disrupt the functionality of the latter. Select files that can definitely be deleted one by one with the left mouse button, clicking on the empty checkmarks to the left of the names, then in the lower right part of the program window, click the button "Remove selected". Be careful - this action is irreversible.

Forgotten and irrelevant recovery points can take up a lot of space - the size can be literally tens of gigabytes (if you don’t know what recovery points are and why they are needed, we recommend reading). Using a tool "System Restore" review the list of restore points. Delete the unnecessary ones, leave 1-2, just in case. To delete, select unnecessary ones, then click on the button below "Delete".

Method 2: Manually removing unnecessary files

You can free the system partition without third-party utilities. This method has both advantages and disadvantages; the details will be discussed below.

A huge number of users store collections of music, movies and photos directly on the system partition. It is strictly not recommended to do this, because... If the operating system malfunctions, precious collections are at risk. Move them to an adjacent partition; if there is none, split the hard drive into partitions of the required partition (check out this material).
Right-click on the folder in which the large files are located, in the context menu that opens, select "Cut out".

Then open another section, right-click on an empty space, select from the context menu "Insert".

Moving multimedia files will significantly relieve the load on the system partition.
How long has it been since you cleaned "Basket"? These files do not hang in the air, but lie on the same system partition, just in a different folder. Final cleaning of deleted files can suddenly add a gigabyte or two of free space.
Right-click on the Recycle Bin icon on your desktop and click on "Empty trash".

Recently I came across a survey “how much space do you have on drive C”, which prompted me to show you how to clear drive C of unnecessary files without deleting anything unnecessary.

As the survey showed, most people have only 100 GB allocated to drive C, of which a couple of GB are free. This is not surprising, the OS and the necessary software take up 50 GB, plus garbage, temporary files, and as a result, the memory is all occupied. Let's get started and remove all the junk from the computer one by one.

Quick Clean Windows 10

Cleaning downloads

I think everyone knows what this folder is and why it is full. If anyone is in the “Downloads” tank, this is the place where all your files that you downloaded/saved on the Internet are located. To find this folder on your computer, open “Computer/My Computer” and in the left menu there will be “Downloads”.

If for some reason this folder is not in the left menu, then go to: Drive C, Users, “User name of your PC”, Downloads.

Now, as you understand, I suggest deleting everything from this folder except what you need. It is better to move the remaining files that will be useful to you to another drive.

To move files to another section, hold down the “Ctrl” key and left-click on the files/folders you need. Once you have everything selected, press “Ctrl” + “X” (Cut) then open the folder where you want to move it and press “Ctrl” + “V”.

Move the downloads folder to drive D, E, F

If you have little space on drive C and you cannot/want to expand it, it would be logical to transfer downloads to another drive where the space allows it. You can’t just transfer it like that, so you’ll have to use the following method:

Go to drive C, Users, “Your PC username”, “Downloads”.
Right-click on the “downloads” folder and select “Properties” from the menu.
In the top menu, go to "Location".
Here is the path of your folder, which you can change manually or click “Find folder”.

Once you have selected a folder on another drive, click "Apply" and you're done!

Deleting temporary files

Temporary files are stored in the "Temp" folder and they are all unnecessary junk that clogs up your computer. These files remain after installing programs, updates, etc. You can remove absolutely everything without even looking at what is there.

First, let's open the "Temp" folder. Open “Disk C”, then “Windows” and then open the “Temp” folder. Select all files using the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl” + “A” and delete them.

Windows may notify you that you can only delete a certain file with Administrator rights. Click yes/continue.

If you have Windows XP, then move on to the next point, if Windows 7-10, then do the following:

In the search, on the start panel, write “%temp%” and open the folder.

Alternative opening option: enter “C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp” in the address bar. Where “UserName” you need to enter the user name of your PC.

In this folder, delete everything that can be deleted. Personally, in 1 month I collected almost 2 GB of temporary files.

We clean with the CCleaner utility

I would like to suggest you use a program called “ccleaner”. This is a very powerful utility that does half of what is mentioned above, and also clears the cache, browser history and much more. If you don’t need to clear something, for example, browser history, you can turn it off in the settings.

In any case, I advise everyone to use it, so let's see where to download it and how to use it:

Go to the official website “https://download.ccleaner.com/ccsetup541.exe” and download the program.

Install and run the program. During installation, uncheck the boxes next to unnecessary programs (Avast, etc.).

Go to the “Options” tab then “Setting” and select Russian instead of English.

Go to the cleaning tab and uncheck everything that you do not want to clean (browser history, etc.). After that, click "clean".

You will be pleasantly surprised, after cleaning the program will show how many MB it has freed up your computer.

Remove unnecessary programs

Over time, a large amount of software is collected that is essentially not used. Some you installed yourself, some installed themselves (viruses from mail.ru, Avast, etc.). Earlier, I already wrote « » , so let's look at it as an example:

Uninstalling a program in Windows 7:

Open the Start menu and click on Control Panel. Now find “Programs and Features” in the list.

In the menu in front of you are all the programs that are installed on the computer. Select “Avast” among them, click on it once and click “delete” in the top menu.

The program installer will open, in which at the very bottom there is an inconspicuous delete button. Click on it. After which, the antivirus program will try to convince you, but you continue what you started and don’t believe it.

Ready! Next time, be more careful when installing software and games.

Uninstalling Avast in Windows 10:

Open “Start”, then “Settings”, then “System”.

Find “Avast” in the list, click on it, and then click “delete”.

In this way, remove all programs that you do not use. Don't delete nothing that you are not sure of, especially software from Adobe and Microsoft, and the rest is not particularly important.

Increasing space on drive C

Increasing space on drive C at the expense of another drive is quite simple, and in order not to take a million screenshots, I suggest watching a short video:

Cleaning the cart

After you delete a file or folder, it goes into the trash in case you change your mind. These files accumulate there until you empty the trash manually or restore them back.

After such a global cleanup of the C drive, you definitely need to empty the Recycle Bin. In general, I recommend doing this regularly (once a week will be enough), especially since it does not take much time.

So that Empty trash, find on the desktop the icon with a trash can and the corresponding inscription, then right-click on it and select “Empty Trash” from the menu. Ready! Case for 10 seconds. and there is more disk space.

What not to do

Here I will try to list all possible mistakes of inexperienced users, as well as mention advice from other sites and explain why you should not do this (if you forgot something, add it in the comments):

Under no circumstances should you delete any files or folders on drive C if they are there without your actions. Those. You can only delete folders that you created. Otherwise, it may cause the OS to crash.
Don't do anything with the hibernation file. Don't disable it, don't delete it. Only experienced users can disable it correctly so as not to encounter a system error in the future. The megabytes won are not worth it.
Do not disable or change the size of the page file - this will affect the performance of your system.
Standard Disk Cleanup. In the computer properties there is a standard utility that supposedly cleans drive C of debris. Yes, this is true, but for example, in 1 year of using a computer, 60 MB of files will be collected there (this is very little). It's just not easy anymore not relevant and don't waste your time.
Uninstall programs completely (this is described in detail above) using special installation files uninstall.exe. There is no need to delete programs along with the folder in the “program files” section, otherwise there will be many other files of this program on the disk.

Conclusion

As you can see for yourself, a lot of unnecessary files, programs and folders were deleted. Now you have a lot of free space on drive C. I also recommend cleaning your computer so that it doesn’t slow down.

Many users are faced with a situation where the computer begins to slow down unimaginably. At the same time, a pop-up message appears about the lack of free space on drive C. At the same time, the options offered by the OS itself (all kinds of compression and cleanup) do not give anything.

Causes:

Viruses. In this case, we can advise you to thoroughly scan the system with a good antivirus. Or a scanner. For example, AVZ, drWeb Cureit.
Clogging of the system disk so-called. "junk files". The solution is to install a cleaning program. Popular programs – Auslogics Boost Speed, CCleaner.

But much more often, the reason for the lack of free space on the system partition is the incorrect actions of the user himself. Which ones exactly?

Desktop

Desktop – FOR SHORTECTS ONLY! This slogan is worth sculpting in marble. Typically, users clog up their desktop with a bunch of “heavy files”. Movies, music, hundreds of pictures and photographs. It is not right! After all, the “desktop” is just a special folder on the system disk!

User data should be located in folders on other partitions (local drives). Throwing shortcuts from your favorite folders onto your desktop is not at all difficult. A shortcut usually weighs no more than 4 kb.

Download folders

All programs that can download something from the Internet place this “something” in the “My Documents” folder. In both win XP and win 7, this folder is also located on the system drive (usually drive C). Therefore, you should go into the settings of your browser and torrent client and specify a folder on another drive for downloads (on drive D, for example).

Games

Lazy and inattentive users do not bother to read the information when installing games. And they are placed by default in “C\program files\game_name” (or Program Data). And this is fundamentally wrong! Modern games can weigh more than 10 GB! That's right - put games in any other partition, but not on drive C! During installation you can always see the buttons “Browse”, “Change”, “View”, etc. With their help, you can specify any section or folder as the installation path.

Page file (pagefile.sys)

Contrary to popular belief, moving the paging file does not affect performance in any way. If it is transferred to another logical partition of the SAME hard drive on which the OS is located. The main thing is not to confuse the “hard disk”, as an HDD device, and the “local drives” C and D, which are logical partitions of this HDD! In general, paging file optimization is a topic for a separate article.

But such a transfer can save from 1 to 4 GB, depending on the size of the installed RAM. True, we must take into account that some programs will be “indignant”.

Basket size (recycler)

If you look into the properties of the Recycle Bin (by right-clicking on the "Recycle Bin" icon on the desktop), you will see an interesting thing. It turns out that by default, Windows OS reserves 10% of the free space of either the entire hard drive or each partition. And honestly considers these gigabytes occupied. By selecting the "Independent disk configuration" option and setting 2-4%, you can also unload the unfortunate partition C (there is no point in storing files weighing several gigabytes in the recycle bin).

System restore points. They are also backup copies.

Everything that is written about the recycle bin is also true for the system backup storage. Where are the restore points? As a rule, it is not possible to restore the system using a point “older” than six months. And the huge default system storage size is simply not needed. It should also be reduced to 2-4%.

The article is applicable for OS win XP, Vista, Win 7.