Can't delete Temporary Internet Files in W10

WARNING: DO NOT TYPE IN THE CODE FROM CHARLES ABOVE. IT WILL DELETE ALL YOUR FILES.

I was having trouble deleting the 'Temporary Files' from my W10 laptop (cleaning up possibly corrupted temp files causing some issues after cloning my OS drive). This is not about Temporary Internet Files, those were cleaned up fine.

Disk Cleanup could see there's Temporary Files but doesn't delete them, so I thought I should use Charles' instructions to get rid of them.

In the Command Prompt I pasted and executed his instruction :  del /q/f/s %TEMP%\ *

It deleted ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that was data and non-OS from my C drive. Unbelievable!

All the folder structures are still there... but the programs and data are all gone. I don't know how this could happen, but dear lord, be careful.

Charles, do you have ny thoughts as to why this happened?

Luckily I recently cloned the drive, so I'll recover everything, but what a mess! Perhaps put some warnings on this so before some other poor person (without backups) follows your instructions.

edit: These are the instructions from Charles "Copy and paste with the right mouse button this command: del /q/f/s %TEMP%\ * + Enter, execute the process and see if the amount of files or space occupied decreases."

- Is the issue here with the asterisk at the end of your command?

Hi Charles!

The problem does not appear to be with /Temp, but rather with /Temporary Internet Files. I can and have deleted files in /Temp. Is there anyway to access /Temporary Internet Files and run a del there?

Thanks and

All the best,

Hi Halb_Verloren,

I'm Charles, an Independent advisor trying to help.

Let's see if these steps help you to erase temporary files, since those who have applied so far have not been able to erase them.

1.- Windows key + R >> Execute, write command: %temp% + Enter, will open a new window where you will select all the files (Ctrl + A) >> Shift + Del to permanently erase the computer, with this command the files they don't go to the recycle bin.

2.- Press Windows Start key >> Write: cmd (Right click on the option: Run as administrator) >> Copy and paste with the right mouse button this command: del /q/f/s %TEMP%\ * + Enter, execute the process and see if the amount of files or space occupied decreases.

If you still cannot delete temporary files, try deleting them by applying all the indications applied so far, including those that I share to you, before, you must Start Windows in safe mode, I add the article that will show you the steps of how to do it, in the section >> Show all.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12376/...

I hope the steps work for you

Attentive to any comments

Have a happy day

Best Regards,

Charles.

I forgot to say that I already tried multiple consecutive runs of Cleanup. I got some space, but Temporary Internet Files remained the same size at 1.9GB. I also previously ran Treesize, which seemed to disagree with Cleanup. Windows Temp is 0MB while Users/. . ./Local/Temporary Internet Files is also 0MB for all users. Modification dates are more than a month ago for all users. Apologies for not specifying this earlier.

The Treesize info is pretty extensive. Is there a particular branch that I should take a screenshot of?

Hi Halb_Verloren

Run Disk Cleanup twice as explained below:

Open File Explorer

Click on your hard drive

On the Manage Tab, click Cleanup

Let Disk Cleanup do its initial scan

Select Everything in the list and choose Delete

Start Disk Cleanup again

Let Disk Cleanup do its initial scan

This time in the resulting dialog, click 'Cleanup System Files'

Let Disk Cleanup run another scan

Select Everything in the list and choose Delete

Then, click the link below to download a small free utility called Treesize. Using that tool, you will instantly see where this space is being used

https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/

Please provide a screenshot of your C drive in that Treesize window . . .

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