Free image compression
Free image watermark
Free image edit
Free QR code
Free Image Format ConversionQ: Something is taking up space on my Windows 10 hard drive, help!
“About three weeks ago, my 500 GB hard drive suddenly became very slow and showed only 50 GB of free space. Now it's down to 100 MB, and I can't even open the drive quickly to access files. It looks like something is eating up my hard drive space, but I have no idea what.”
How can I check and solve my hard drive space issue? Any help would be appreciated. I'm using the Windows 10 operating system.
There are times when your hard drive might suddenly run out of space for no apparent reason. If the hard drive is your system drive and it's almost full, Windows will run slower. If you're running out of disk space, use a free disk space analyzer to find out what's taking up space on your hard drive, then follow the steps below to free up space.
Read more:
7 Ways to Fix 99% Disk Usage in Windows OS
Learn effective methods to fix the 99% disk usage issue in Windows. Follow these seven steps to optimize your system performance efficiently.
How to See What's Taking Up Space on Your Hard Drive in Windows 10/8/7
You can use a specialized tool to analyze disk space on Windows or the built-in Windows tools. There are two steps to find out what's taking up space on your hard drive:
?Read More: How to Find Large Files on Windows 10 | A Quick Guide
Step 1: Show Hidden Files on Your Hard Drive
We have provided a comprehensive guide listing the three methods to show hidden files on your hard drive. You can refer to this page to learn how to display hidden files on your computer hard drive using CMD, Control Panel, and software: How to Show Hidden Files Using CMD, Control Panel, and Software.
Step 2: Analyze your hard drive to see what's taking up space.
This article will show you how to check your hard drive usage on Windows 10. The same process applies to Windows 8.1, 8, and 7:
1. Right-click the Windows icon and select "Settings."
2. Click on “System,” and then click “Storage” in the left sidebar.
3. In the “Storage” window, you'll see the storage usage of all hard drive partitions, as shown in the picture below:
4. Click on a hard drive partition that is almost full. You'll see what's taking up the most space on your computer, including apps and features that are using storage space.
Now that you know what's taking up space on your computer, you can manually free up room on your hard drive by deleting temporary files, uninstalling apps you no longer need, and so on.
Click on each drive to see what's taking up space. Click on each category to delete unneeded apps, files, and so on.
If you don't want to delete files manually, how can you free up disk space and make your computer run faster in a quick and automatic way? Read on, and you will learn all the practical methods to free up disk space and speed up Windows 10. Here is an associated article for your reference on how to find out what is taking up disk space:
What's Taking Up Space on My SSD?
Use this 2023 guide to discover what's occupying space on your SSD and optimize your storage effectively.
7 Effective Ways to Free Up Disk Space on Windows 10/8/7
After you check what's taking up the most space on your hard drive in Windows 7, 8, or 10, try some methods to free up disk space on Windows 8 or 10. You can use these methods to free up room for important files and programs and improve your computer's performance.
- Delete Junk Files/Large Unneeded Files
- Run Disk Cleanup to Remove Temporary Files
- Uninstall Unused Bloatware
- Free Up Space by Storing Files Elsewhere, Like on Another Drive or in the Cloud
- Move Programs, Apps, and Games to an External Hard Drive
- Disable Hibernation
- Upgrade to a Larger HDD/SSD
1. Delete junk files/unnecessary large files
If you find that your hard drive space is being taken up by temporary files or large, unused documents, CleanGenius is an ideal tool. This free and lightweight program can solve many nagging issues, including removing write protection from USB, SD cards, and internal and external drives in Windows 10/8/7.
It also helps clean all hard drive partitions with its system optimization tools by getting rid of junk files and large files. Install it on your computer now to quickly free up disk space and boost your PC's performance.
Step 1. Download and install Partition Master Suite.
Step 2: Click on “PC Cleaner,” install the CleanGinus tool, and click “Clean” and then “Scan” to begin cleaning your system and restoring your computer to its former self.
Step 3: The software will scan your computer for idle data files that are taking up a lot of disk space. You can choose to get rid of large, unnecessary files, system junk, and invalid Windows entries, then click “Clean” to start the cleaning process.
4. After the scan is completed, click “Finish” to clean up system junk files.
You can also choose “Clean Up Big Files” to remove unneeded large files, which can help free up a lot of space.
Run Disk Cleanup to remove temporary files.
Disk Cleanup is not the same as defragmenting, which doesn't delete files but rearranges them to make your hard drive more efficient. Disk Cleanup, instead, removes temporary files and other unnecessary data from your hard drive to free up space.
Step 1: Open "This PC", right-click on the system drive, and select "Properties".
Click it, and the program will scan your hard drive and calculate how much space you can free up.
Step 3: When that's done, click "Clean up system files" in the window, and have the tool scan your drive again.
When the scan is finished, click “OK” in the new window that pops up. You'll then see a prompt asking if you're sure you want to permanently delete the files. Click “Delete Files.” Since these only remove unnecessary system files, you don't have to worry about losing anything important.
If Disk Cleanup isn't working in Windows 10, learn how to fix it first.
3. Uninstall bloatware that you don't use
Many computers come preloaded with programs that you don't want or need, and they take up a lot of space on your hard drive, leaving you with less room for the things you do want. Uninstalling this bloatware can free up space and make Windows 10 run faster.
Right-click the Start menu, choose Control Panel, then Programs, and click Uninstall a Program. Select any programs you no longer need, then click Uninstall at the top of the list.
4. Free up space by storing files on other hard drives or in the cloud.
If you have some large, important files taking up a lot of space on your hard drive, try one of these tricks:
Tip 1: Add a new disk to your computer and move your files to it.
Tip 2: Store your files on an external storage device.
Suggestion 3: Store your files in a cloud drive, such as OneDrive.
Tip #4: Compress large files before backing them up to an image, to save almost half the disk space.
5. Move programs, apps, and games to an external hard drive
If your Windows computer's built-in hard drive is full of installed programs, apps, and games, you can change where these programs are installed. You can free up space on your hard drive by moving programs to an external hard drive, ensuring that the program will run on any other computer. How? By using the Todo PCTrans tool, you can migrate applications with just a few clicks.
Step 1: Run Todo PCTrans and choose the Transfer Mode
On the Todo PCTrans main interface, click on Application Transfer and then hit Start to proceed.
Step 2: Choose the app and other drives you want to move
1. Select the source partition and check the apps, programs, and software you wish to migrate (labeled as "Yes").
2. Click the triangle icon to select another drive or disk as the target device, then click “Migrate” to start the migration.
Step Three: Complete the transition
When the transfer is over, click “OK” to finish.
You can now restart your computer to keep all the changes, and the migration assistant should run again on the other drive.
6. Disable Hibernation
When you put your system into hibernation, the contents of your RAM are saved to your hard drive. This allows the state of your system to be preserved without using any power – when you boot back up, you can pick up where you left off. Windows stores the RAM data in the file C:\hiberfil.sys. You can disable hibernation entirely to free up space on your hard drive, which will delete this file.
If you're using it and finding it useful, keep it on. It's entirely up to you.
Step one: Click “Start,” then “Control Panel,” and then “Power Options.” On the left, click “Change when the computer sleeps.”
Step 2: Next, click on “Change plan settings.” In the “Advanced power settings” window, expand the “Sleep” option. Then expand “Hibernate after” and change the minutes to 0 to disable hibernation.
Third, you can Set the number of minutes to wait before sleeping. Click “Apply” and “OK,” and close any remaining windows.
7. Upgrade to a larger HDD/SSD
If none of the above methods free up enough space on your Windows 10 or Windows 7 hard drive, the most drastic solution is to replace the old hard drive with a new, larger one. Cloning is the best way to replace a hard drive, as it transfers everything from your old hard drive to the new one without losing any data, and it's very convenient.
A powerful partition manager - tools Partition Master Professional, can help you clone the entire disk to another one, even if the target partition is smaller than the source, which means that you can also clone a larger HDD to a smaller SSD.
Download this easy-to-use disk management tool and follow a simple guide to clone your hard drive to an HDD or SSD.
Step 1: Select the source disk.
- • In the left menu, click “Clone.” Choose “Clone System Disk” or “Clone Data Disk,” then click “Next.”
• Select the source disk, then click “Next.”
Step 2: Select the target disk.
- Select the target HDD/SSD you want and click “Next” to continue.
Read the warning message and confirm by clicking the “Yes” button.
<Step 3> Review the disk layout and edit the size of the target disk partitions, if necessary.
When prompted that all data on the target drive will be deleted, click Continue (make sure to back up any important data on the target drive beforehand).
Here, you can choose to “Adjust disk size automatically,” “Clone as a source disk,” or “Edit disk layout.” (Choose the last option if you want to leave more space for C:.
Click “Start” to begin the cloning process.
Final Judgment
Now you know how to check “How Much Space is Used on Windows 7/8/10 Hard Drive” and how to free up space with seven workable solutions. However, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. High disk usage can occur even after you upgrade to a larger HDD. So remember to regularly run these disk cleanup methods to clean up your disk.
Apologies, it seems like you have entered an empty message. Please provide the English content you would like translated, and I'd be happy to assist you with the translation into Chinese.