How to Free up Disk Space on Windows 10 [Top 7 Ways]

If your C drive (or any other drives) keeps filling up, probably you are trying to find effective ways for Windows disk cleanup. Firstly, you need to find out how much storage your PC has, then I would like to tell you the top skills on how to free up disk space quickly.

#1. Empty the Recycle Bin #

When you delete a file, usually it goes into the Recycle Bin first unless it is too large. In Windows operating systems, each NTFS volume has a hidden $Recycle.Bin folder. The capacity of Recycle Bin is the total size of each $Recycle.Bin combined. The default $Recycle.Bin size is ten percent of the first 40GB of volume size, and five percent of any remaining volume above 40GB.

For example, if you have a 500GB disk, then the maximum Recycle Bin size is 40*10% + (500-40)*5%=27GB.

So if you have got many files deleted into the Recycle Bin, you can empty it to get the amount of disk space.

The operation is rather easy:

1. Right-click on the Recycle Bin.
2. Select Empty Recycle Bin.
3. When you are prompted “Are you sure you want to permanently remove these items”, click Yes.

#2. Delete Junk Files Using Windows Storage Sense #

Windows 10 Storage Sense is a good tool that enables you to easily locate and delete junk files from local drives and external hard drives. Such junk files include previous installation files after an upgrade and temporary files.

Here is how you should do:

1. Go to Windows 10 Settings -> System -> Storage.
2. Click the Configure Storage Sense or run it now option.
3. Under the Recycle Bin & Download folder sections, drop down the box and select how frequently you want to clean up files you do not need.  
4. Optional: under the Free up space now section, check the Delete previous versions of Windows option if it is available.
5. Click the Clean now button.

Tip: You can enable Storage Sense to allow its automatically running when you are on low disk space.

In addition, I suggest you observe the temporary files in the C drive and remove the unnecessary ones for Windows disk cleanup.

1. Go to Windows 10 Settings -> System -> Storage.
2. Click Temporary files under C drive.
3. Wait for Storage to analyze the disk space usage and then check the files you no longer need and remove files.

#3. Delete Temporary File Using Disk Cleanup #

1. Search for Disk Cleanup and run it.
2. Select C or other drives you want to clean up to continue. Wait for the tool to finish calculating.
3. Select the files to delete and click OK. It is suggested that you read the description of each file type before you delete them.

If you would like to go further, click Clean up system files, choose C drive and then wait for Windows to calculate. Later you will be led to a similar window from which you can switch to More Options. Now you have the option to clean up some program files as well as clean Windows system restore point files to free up disk space Windows.

#4. Uninstall Non-essential Programs #

1. Go to Windows Settings -> Apps.
2. From the Apps & Features column, scroll up and down to view what programs are non-essential. Click on them and choose Uninstall.
3. Follow the on-screen wizard to complete program uninstallation.

#5. Disable Windows 10 Hibernation #

1. Press Win + R to invoke the Run box.
2. Type CMD and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to run it as administrator.
3. In the elevated command prompt window, type powercfg /hibernate off and press Enter.

Tip: Windows Hibernation saves the data in memory onto the hard drive, allowing you to shut down computer preserving the current session. When your device comes back online, you can pick up just where you left off. To revert, repeat the above steps above but execute powercfg /hibernate on instead.

#6. Move & Save Files to External Hard Drive #

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Select the files you want to move and then go to Home -> Move to -> Choose Location.
3. Select the place where you want to move files to and click Move. You can also create a new folder on the new location before you move files.

I also suggest you save new files to the external hard drive to free up disk space. Here is how to do this:

1. Go to Windows Settings -> System -> Storage.
2. Under More storage Settings, click Change where new content is saved.
3. Use the drop-down menu to determine the location where you would like to save the new files to on each category.
4. Click the Apply button.

#7. Upgrade Hard Drive #

Finally, if you are tired of the multiple settings, you can upgrade to a larger hard drive. There is a lot of software on the net that can help you migrate all the files from one drive to another without installing Windows, check the following review to make your own choice.

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Wrapping Things Up #

How to free up disk space on Windows 10? I believe now you have an answer. Just give the former tricks a trying to improve the performance of your computer. For any questions, leave me a comment below.