If you’re running out of space on your drive, don’t panic! There are plenty of easy ways to get some fresh air. Here is our guide.
Horror, you have no more space on your hard drive or SSD! You then have two solutions: buy a larger capacity disk or clean up to recover precious gigabytes. Here are our tips for digital sweeping:
1 – Empty the trash
It may seem obvious … But sometimes you forget it! When you delete files in Windows, they are usually moved to a specific folder on the system: the recycle bin. It must therefore be emptied regularly. To do this, right click on the icon placed on the desktop and choose Empty the trash in the context menu.
2 – Delete the temporary files
Type storage in the search box near the Start button and click Storage in the results list.
Click on Changing the way we free up space.
Check that the box Delete temporary files is checked and click on the button Clean now. You can also toggle the switch Storage assistant on activated so that the deletion is carried out automatically as soon as you run out of space.
3 – Perform an advanced cleaning
To go further in eliminating unnecessary files, launch File Explorer and right-click on the disk drive. Then select Properties in the context menu.
Click on Disc cleaning and check the boxes of the files you want to delete. You can also click the button Clean up system files to delete even more data (Windows log, old OS version, previous update installations, etc.).
Click on the button OK to start the operation.
4 – determine which elements take up the most space
How do you know which files are taking up the most space on your disk? Go to the section Storage parameters as in step 2 and, in the area Local storage, click on your disk drive. A display shows you how much space is occupied by different types of data, such as music, pictures or videos.
This lets you know in which folder you can save space, for example by moving large videos to an external drive.
5 – Uninstall applications
You may no longer need some applications that are on your hard drive and are taking up space. To uninstall them, type applications in the search box and click Add or remove programs in the results list.
You then access the list of apps present which you can sort by name, date of installation and especially by size by clicking on the list sort by. To delete an app, click on its name then on the button Uninstall.
6 – Remove functions from Windows 10
Do you know that Internet Explorer 11 is still present in Windows 10? As well as other functions that you don’t necessarily need. To remove them, you have two methods. The first is to click on the mention Manage optional features in the section Applications and Features, accessible in step 5.
You then access new functions that you can uninstall, for example Windows Media Player or additional languages ​​installed in addition to French (also accessible by going to the section Region and language parameters).
The other method is to click on Programs and Features in the section Applications and Features. Then click on Enable or disable Windows features.
You then have access to a list of functions. Uncheck their box to disable them.
Finally click on the button OK to validate the changes.
7 – use cleaning software
If you want to go further in cleaning your hard drive, there is software designed for this task, the best known of which is CCleaner.
It is not the only one and we have made a selection of the best free software to clean your PC.