11 ways to increase free disk space in Windows 11 or Windows 10

[Admin]

If your storage drive is full, there are many ways to your gigabytes back.

11 ways to increase free disk space in Windows 11 or Windows 10 : Read more

 

[PEnns]

Very useful, especially the "size:Gigantic" one.

Thanks!!

 

[yeyibi]

If you are really desperate, is possible to reclaim space from the master file table.
An almost full disk, generally has a large unused part of the master file table.

But I don't remember the name of the tool that did it.

Also, the windows\winsxs folder uses to waste a lot of gigabytes which can be reclaimed.

If you compress folders, windows defaults to XPRESS4K algorithm, which is fast for frequently accessed files, but if you have folders rarely used, like the winsxs folder, is best to set LZX algorithm, which compresses a lot more, but is slower to use.

There are also tools to move the user folders (which tend to be giant) to other partitions/disks. They don't need to be in c:\users.

 

[peachpuff]

From time to time tom delivers on amazing articles.

 

[AgentBirdnest]

Very useful, especially the "size:Gigantic" one.

Thanks!!

Yeah, I had no idea about that one. That's a cool trick!
(But I usually see files that large with WinDirStat, anyway. That's one of my favorite utilities.)

 

[AgentBirdnest]

From time to time tom delivers on amazing articles.

These tips-and-tricks checklist things are among my favorite articles here. Extremely useful for newbies, but there are almost always a couple of tips that even I didn't know about, that I'll end up using from then on.

Great article, Avram!

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

You can also use the 5GB OneDrive space Microsoft provides to everyone for free to offload files, and Microsoft PC Manager (via Microsoft Store) makes it easier to search for large files and implement a cleanup.

 

[Thunder64]

Some of these are very bad ideas. Compact or enabling compression. Disabling system restore. And possibly deleting the recovery partition. The others sure have merit.

 

[Geezer760]

Easy, get a bigger Hard Drive, SSD, m.2 etc... or delete all those porn videos your collecting, LOL.

 

[nirdinur]

If your storage drive is full, there are many ways to your gigabytes back.

11 ways to increase free disk space in Windows 11 or Windows 10 : Read more

Windirstat is slow and outdated. AFAIK it is not been updated for years. I found Wiztree and it is much much faster and better. there are probably other good options. Wiztree was just the first I tried and it is great for my needs.

 

[das_stig]

Deleting recovery partition, really, for your general user, this is a bad idea, as how will they recover their OS? No OEM system these days should even think of doing this with the storage capacities available now.

 

[RandomWan]

If you're hunting for files that take up space and where they reside, Treesize Free is a good option. It's a small download and the install footprint is just as small (great tool when you're trying to rescue something that has almost zero free space). If you're deleting/disabling the Windows RE partition seeking space, you need a larger drive. Even after MS's recent update that increased the footprint, it's less than a gig of space.

Disabling Hibernate is a good option unless you're making regular use of it. I recently did this on my laptop which had a ~14GB hibernation file with it on even though I wasn't making use of hibernation.