Most of my disk space is being taken up and I don't know what to do

Question

my Windows folder takes up around 60GB on my 120GB disk and I was wondering if there is any way to reduce the space it takes up. I've tried deleting unnecessary personal files and using the disk clean up but I've actually been losing disk space somehow. that combined with other folders being unusually large and bloated makes it so I can only have at most 20GB of my 120GB disk.

Answer 1

Hello James Gould

I understand that your Windows folder is using around 60 GB of a 120 GB drive, and your available space continues to decrease even after removing personal files and running Disk Cleanup.

In addition to the cleanup methods you have already tried, please try the following steps:

1. Open Command Prompt as administrator and run: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore If cleanup is recommended, run: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup This safely removes replaced Windows components.
2. Search for Create a restore point, select Configure, and check the space used. You can lower the maximum allocation, but this may remove older restore points.
3. Optional: If you do not use Hibernate, open Command Prompt as administrator and run powercfg /hibernate off. Windows will automatically remove the reserved hiberfil.sys file and free the space it occupies. Be aware that this also disables Fast Startup and Hybrid Sleep, while normal Sleep and Shut down will continue working.

For more ways to identify and safely free up storage, see this detailed community guide: [Article] How to free up disk space in Windows. Please review each option carefully before removing system files or restore points.

To help prevent the drive from filling again, regularly check Settings > System > Storage, uninstall unused apps, and move large files to external or cloud storage. If another drive is available, use Advanced storage settings > Where new content is saved so new files are not stored on C: by default.

Please let me know how it goes after trying these steps, and I'll be glad to continue looking into it with you.

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