AppData folder disc size management

Question

I was trying to free up some disc space on my Surface 2 and I found that the hidden "AppData" folder (user>[username]>AppData) was taking up 8gigs of space. Most of the storage is in the "local" subfolder in AppData (with the "packages" folder in "local" having another lionsshare of space). Can anyone tell me what in this AppData folder is safe to delete? Can I redirect the stuff that is saved here to an external card?

Answer 1

Hi Bennet,

I managed to free up some storage by deleting unused apps, but I'm still having issues with storage. I only have 3.7gigs free on my 32GB Surface2, but I really don't store much on my Surface's drive. I mostly save things to SkyDrive, which was working well until I discovered that SkyDrive won't let you download anything if your disc space is below 3GB (Is this a bug or is this supposed to be this way??). So really I only have about .7GB to play with, and it seems like every day my free storage drops precipitously, despite that I haven't added anything. Is there an "other storage" function similar to WP8 that's eating space?

I'm having trouble tracking down what all my storage is being used for. I tallied all the folders in my C drive and it doesn't add up to the total I should have. Where is all the extra space going to?

C Drive Folders:

Windows: 7.62 GB on disc

Users: 7.32 GB on disc

Program Data: .099 GB on disc

Program Files: .838 GB on disc

= 15.87 GB on disc used

• 3.7 GB free on C

= 19.57 GB

I should have a total of 25.3 GB, but I can only account for 19.6 GB. Seems like I'm missing 5.7 GBs .....where'd all that go?

Answer 2

Dell XPS 13. Windows 8.1 Just over one (1) year old. 

Windows recently flashed a message telling me I was running low on disk space. I couldn't understand why. I barely keep any files on this computer.

After rooting around for three (3) days, I discovered the following folder:

C:\Users[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Low\IE

It contains twelve (12) subfolders, totaling 43 GB of internet data!

Looking at the files, it contains data from internet browsing from almost the first day I purchased the computer.

Standard IE delete browsing history, Windows disk cleanup, and other tactics didn't touch these at all.

Is it ok to manually delete these subfolders?

And how can I ensure they don't creep up again?

Answer 3

The folder on mine is %appdata%\Local\Packages\windows_ie_ac_001\AC\INetCache

The fun thing about this bug is that cached files from InPrivate browsing sessions are stored here, and the files are never deleted.

Disk cleanup doesn't get them, IE's deleting temporary internet files misses them, metro IE's 'delete browsing history' doesn't delete them either.

Using TreeSize free I was surprised to see over 10GB of accumulated rubbish from two years of using this Win8 computer.

(It's a Sony Vaio, and I haven't changed any IE settings from the defaults since I got it)

Answer 4

Hi Karthik,

I tried doing Method 1, but I did not find a "configure" option when I clicked on "Advanced System Settings". FYI, I'm running Windows 8.1, did these options change in a recent update?

I tried Disc Cleanup and it wasn't all that helpful.

Thanks,

Spenser

Answer 5

Hi Spenser,

The app data folder contains the roaming folder and a local folder which contains information, settings and app related data about your Microsoft roaming account as well as local information. I wouldn’t recommend deleting any files from this folder for now.

If you are looking to save some space in your Surface device, you can check out these articles:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows-8/free-up-disk-space

https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-ca/support/storage-files-and-folders/move-files-to-your-surface

https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/storage-files-and-folders/surface-storage-options

Hope this helps. Feel free to get back to us for any Windows related queries in the future; we’d be happy to help.