How to Delete Shadow Copies from your Hard Disk Drive to Free Up Space
In this tutorial, you will learn how to delete shadow copies that are created when system restore points are made. If you have unknown space that is consuming your hard disk, this could resolve your problem.
Step 1
Download windirstat and install the program.
Step 2
Run the program and enable the option to see unknown space (generally shadow copies)
Step 3
If you are missing a lot of space and it is in the unknown portion, it is likely to be shadow copies. Run command prompt
Step 4
Type "vssadmin list shadows" in command prompt and you will see the number of shadow copies there are (windows restore backups... so don't delete the ones you want to keep). It is safe to delete all unless you want to do a windows restore.
Step 5
Type "wmic" in command prompt and press enter. Then type "shadowcopy delete" and you will be prompted with a pop up asking you if you want to delete the specified shadow copy. Type "y" to delete and "n" to keep.
Recap
This should've saved you space on your HDD and/or SSD. I saved over 80GB of space from deleting all the shadow copies that had accumulated over time. To avoid this issues in the future, you can turn off system restore if you are not going to be using it.
Thanks for reading
In this tutorial, you will learn how to delete shadow copies that are created when system restore points are made. If you have unknown space that is consuming your hard disk, this could resolve your problem.
Step 1
Download windirstat and install the program.
Step 2
Run the program and enable the option to see unknown space (generally shadow copies)
Step 3
If you are missing a lot of space and it is in the unknown portion, it is likely to be shadow copies. Run command prompt
Step 4
Type "vssadmin list shadows" in command prompt and you will see the number of shadow copies there are (windows restore backups... so don't delete the ones you want to keep). It is safe to delete all unless you want to do a windows restore.
Step 5
Type "wmic" in command prompt and press enter. Then type "shadowcopy delete" and you will be prompted with a pop up asking you if you want to delete the specified shadow copy. Type "y" to delete and "n" to keep.
Recap
This should've saved you space on your HDD and/or SSD. I saved over 80GB of space from deleting all the shadow copies that had accumulated over time. To avoid this issues in the future, you can turn off system restore if you are not going to be using it.
Thanks for reading
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