Don’t feel like cleaning your PC of unnecessary files yourself? Let Windows 11 automatically clean up all kinds of unnecessary files.
Storage Insight in Windows 11
Modern hard drives have a huge amount of storage space. Nevertheless, downloads and all kinds of temporary files together take up a lot of space on the hard disk. With that ‘Storage Insight’ feature, Windows 11 automatically disposes of unnecessary files.
Turn on the ‘Storage Insight’ option like this:
- Click the Start button in the center of the Taskbar.
- click on Institutions (the gear icon).
- click on Storage.
- Under ‘Storage Insight’, click on the slider so that it turns blue and the word ‘On’ appears. Is the slider already blue and it says ‘On’? Then this function is already active on the computer.
Unnecessary files are now automatically deleted.
Change settings
Adjust the settings of the ‘Storage Insight’ function to your liking.
- Click on the small arrow next to ‘Storage Insight’ behind the blue on/off switch.
- A new window will appear with a number of options. Determine how often Windows 11 performs the check.
- Under “Run Storage Insight,” click the drop-down menu.
- Choose the option you want: every day, every week, every month or when free disk space is low.
- Specify whether files can be removed from the Recycle Bin and Downloads folders after a certain number of days. Windows 11 only removes unused files from the Downloads folder.
It is useful to know that deleted files can in principle no longer be recovered. Fortunately, Windows 11 only automatically deletes files you no longer use anyway. Click at the bottom if necessary Run Storage Insight Now to immediately start a cleanup. When finished, you will see how much disk space has been freed up. Click on the arrow at the top left to go back to the overview.
Storage Parts
In the ‘Storage’ section there is a bar with the capacity of the hard drive. See how much space is in use and how much is still available. Below that is a list of individual parts. click on Show more categories to display the full list. Then click on an item to read more about it. Sometimes an action is immediately available there, such as manually clearing temporary files. Click on the arrow at the top left to go back to the overview.