why does ebview (webviewer2) a microsoft installed program continually write folders to my user folder of upto 10 gig overnight??

Question

why does ebview (webviewer2) a microsoft installed program continually write folders to my user folder of upto 10 gig overnight??

Answer 1

Hello. What you’re seeing is usually not WebView2 acting on its own. WebView2 is a shared Microsoft component that apps use to display web-based content, and it only writes data when another app keeps it running in the background. If it’s creating up to 10 GB overnight, that almost always means a specific app is continuously using it and not cleaning up its cache.

When you notice the disk growth, which apps are left running or minimized overnight (for example Outlook, Teams, Widgets, Copilot, or any third-party apps that stay in the system tray)?

Check the following:

1. Open Task Manager and look for msedgewebview2.exe. Check which parent app is associated with it. This tells you which application is actually responsible.
2. Temporarily disable Windows Widgets and close background apps before leaving the PC idle overnight. This helps confirm whether a system component is the trigger.
3. Check the modification dates inside C:\Users<your user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\EdgeWebView\ to see when the growth starts. This helps correlate it with app usage or idle periods.

These steps don’t “fix” WebView2 directly, but they identify the app causing the excessive writes, which is the real source of the problem.

For reference, this Microsoft page explains what WebView2 is and how it’s used by apps. The “Runtime behavior and user data” sections are the most relevant here: https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-edge/webview2/

Once the host app is identified, the next step is usually adjusting that app’s settings(also disable it completely) or reporting it to the developer, since WebView2 itself doesn’t enforce cache limits.

Answer 2

Hi Leigh Ezard:

The tag Windows Open Specifications is dedicated to supporting issues related to open specifications. You can find open specifications here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/

Your inquiry is not related to open specifications. I have modified the tags to better align with your question.

Regards,

Obaid Farooqi - MSFT