How to clean disk c

The C Drive is Full and How to Empty It in 6 Ways

The C drive is full and how to empty it? Here, 6 different ways are provided so you can resolve this issue easily and effectively by freeing up or extending storage space.

By Cherry / Last Updated June 28, 2022

Why do you need to clean C drive?

Over time, your computer can be gradually sluggish and slow. There could be many different causes of the problem and one of them is that the C drive is full of data files. Usually, the C drive is where the system is installed, and when it’s running low on space, your computer can become really sluggish and you can also constantly run into system crashes and the BSOD issue. Thus, it’s necessary to free up space or directly extend the C drive when there’s insufficient storage left.

6 methods to resolve «C drive is full how to empty it»

«How to clean C drive» is never hard to deal with Windows built-in tools and third-party software. Let’s see how to clear disk space now!

Method 1. Disable hibernate

1. Double-click This Computer.

3. In the Folder Options, select View. Choose “Show hidden files, folders, and drives”.

Method 2. Run C drive cleanup

Disk Cleanup is a useful Windows built-in program that helps clean junk files including cache and cookies from drives on your PC.

1. Click Start, type “disk” in the search box, and select Disk Cleanup.

2. In the Disk Cleanup, select the drive you want to clean up. Here is the C: drive. Click OK.

3. After that, it will calculate how much space you will be able to free on the C: drive.

4. And then, choose to delete files you do not need.

After cleaning up C: drive, you can create a system restore point. Once you need it, you can use it to restore the system.

Method 3. Delete temporary and downloaded files

You can delete temporary files without running Disk Cleanup. The temporary files are usually stored in “C:\Windows\Temp”, or “C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temp”. The files in both folders can be deleted directly.

Method 4. Delete Internet temporary files

To delete Internet temporary files, you can do the following steps:

1. Open Internet Explorer (IE), click Tools, and select Internet Options.

2. Then, it will pop up in the Internet Options window. ClickDelete, and it will pop up the Delete Browsing History window, where you can choose to delete temporary files, history, cookies, etc.

Method 5. Empty the Recycle Bin

When you delete items from your PC, they don’t immediately get deleted. They just stay in the Recycle Bin and remain taking up valuable hard-drive space. Thus, emptying the Recycle Bin is another way to free up space for C: drive. To empty the Recycle Bin, you should right-click on the Recycle Bin on the desktop, and click Empty Recycle Bin. It will pop up a warning asking if you are sure you want to permanently delete your Recycle Bin items. Click Yes to proceed.

Method 6. Move all Apps from C to D

If your C drive is almost full because there are too many applications inside, you might want to move them to another bigger drive, the D drive, for example. However, how to move them and ensure they can run as usual? This can be easily done via the AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Its «App Mover» can help users to transfer programs from one drive to another. Here you can download its demo version and have a try.

Step 1. Install and run the software. Click «All Tools» > «App Mover».

Step 2. Choose the C drive and click «Next».

Step 3. Select apps you want to move, set a destination path and click on «Move».

Step 4. Click «OK» on the pop-up window.

Those are the most effective way to empty full C: drive we have concluded. I hope this can help you a lot.

Actually, there are certain people whose C: drive full but D: drive empty. For those users, extending C: drive with free space from the D: drive should be the best way to solve the C drive full problem instead of emptying it.

Solve “C: drive is full” by increasing partition capacity

Empty the C: drive when it is full is just temporary expediency. After a while, you may find the C: drive is full again. To solve the C: drive full problem, the best way should be to extend the C: drive with free space from other drives. Some users choose to re-install the system for the re-partitioning hard drive.

But now, you can use AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to repartition hard drives without losing data. And you can use it to extend the C: drive without reinstalling OS.

Situation 1. C: drive full but D: drive empty

If your C: drive is Full but D: drive is empty, you can use the free space in D: drive to extend C: drive.

Step 1. Install AOMEI Partition Assistant on your Windows 11/10/8/7, and launch it. It will show you the basic environment of your disks. Right-click the D: drive, select “Allocated Free Space”.

Step 2. Then, it will pop up the window where you can allocate free space from D: drive to C: drive. After setting up, click «OK«.

Step 3. Finally, click «Apply» and «Proceed» to execute the progress.

Situation 2. C: drive full, but there is unallocated space on the hard drive

If your C: drive is full, but there is unallocated space on the hard drive, you can extend the C: drive with the unallocated space.

Step 1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, right-click C: drive, select Merge Partitions.

Step 2. Tick the unallocated space to add it to the C: drive.

Step 3. Click «Apply»> «Proceed» when you back to the main interface.

Conclusion

The C drive is full and how to empty it? Generally, there’re 2 kinds of solutions to the issue – freeing up storage space or increasing the C drive capacity. Luckily, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional can do both of them on Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP.

You can use this software to move apps from the C drive to another drive and extend its volume with free space from another drive or merge the C drive with unallocated space. If your C drive on your Server machine is full, you can try the Server edition of it.

Clean C Drive without Formatting in Windows 10/8/7 [Tested & Worked]

This page provides reliable solutions for you to clean C drive and even delete system C drive, follow to see how can you clean or delete your system C drive in Windows 10/8/7 on your own now:

How to Clean C Drive without Formatting Windows 10/8/7

When the computer or Windows system has been running for a very long period, many useless junk files will be leftover in the system C drive. With more and more leftover files accumulating, the computer becomes slower and slower.

So how to resolve this problem? The best and most straightforward solution to this issue is to clean the C drive. Some people may come up with the solution to format C drive. But Windows computer won’t allow you to format the system C drive. Huge file loss or even system error would occur if you do so.
Here in the below, we’ve gathered two tested and effective methods for you to apply and clean C drive without formatting in Windows 10, 8 and even 7:

Method 1. Run Disk Cleanup utility to clean C drive

1. Open This PC/My Computer, right-click on C drive and select Properties.

2. Click Disk Cleanup and select files that you want to delete from C drive.

3. Click OK to confirm the operation.

Method 2. Clean up C drive without formatting

You’ll see that Disk Cleanup utility can only remove some temp files and Recycle Bin files on your computer. If you want to remove more Windows built-in application junk files or large files in Windows 10/8/7, you’ll need to turn on another powerful partition manager software for help.

To remove all useless files and even large files from your C drive, we’d like to recommend you try EaseUS CleanGenius software.
It’s 100% free and risk-free for optimizing computer performance with its Cleanup feature. You may directly download and install it on your PC, following guidelines below to clean up your C drive without formatting now:

Step 1. Download and install EaseUS Partition Master Suite.

Windows 11/10/8/7 100% Secure

Step 2. Click PC Cleaner and install EaseUS CleanGinus. Then, click «Cleanup» and click «Scan» to start cleaning up the system and make your PC as good as new.

Step 3. The software will scanning all over your computer to find idle data files that take a huge amount of disk space, you can select useless large files, system junk files and Windows invalid entries and click «Clean» to start system cleanup process.

Step 4. When the scan is complete, click «Done» to finish cleaning system junk files.

After this, you’ll get a clean but faster-running speed on your computer.

Delete system C drive without formatting? (Delete OS on HDD/SSD)

Besides cleaning or clearing C drive, some other Windows users are even thinking to delete system C drive (OS partition) from HDD or SSD without formatting. But why do these people want to do so? And how to do it?

Here is a list of reasons why Windows users want to delete a system drive from a Windows computer, and if you are one of them, don’t worry. You’ll find a solution here:

You can directly activate it into a full version and apply it to below guidelines to delete the system C drive with ease now.

Windows 11/10/8/7 100% Secure

2. Delete the system C drive

Step 1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master on your computer.

Step 2. Select to delete partition or delete all partitions on hard drive.

Make sure that you’ve backed up the important data on the selected partition because this manner will compeletely remove data.

Step 3. Click «OK» to confirm the deletion.

Step 4. Click «Execute xx Operation» on the top menu and then click «Apply» to save the change.

Note: If you’ve deleted the system C drive on your current running computer, you’ll not be able to run or boot up Windows system anymore. You can refer to clean install Windows 10, 8 or 7 for tutorial help.

Tips to free up drive space on your PC

Getting a message that your PC is running out of room can be a stressful event—or, even a genuine emergency if you’re in the middle of an important project. The good news is you can probably free up a lot of space on your PC running Windows by following the tips here. But if you keep getting messages about low drive space, you might want to consider other options, including adding additional removable storage.

To get the most out of these tips, do them in order from top to bottom.

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Settings, and then tap Change PC settings. (If you’re using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, click Settings, and then click Change PC settings.)

Select PC and devices, and then select Disk space.

Under Free up space on this PC, note the amount of free space and total size.

You can view the size of your Windows Store apps and choose whether to uninstall them by tapping or clicking See my app sizes.

You can also free up space by tapping or clicking Empty my Recycle Bin if you have files there.

If you don’t see Disk space, you don’t have the latest update to Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1. For more info, see Install the Windows 8.1 Update (KB 2919355).

You can also check the current space on your PC in File Explorer by searching for This PC.

Cleaning out your PC on a regular basis frees up drive space and helps it run better. One of the easiest ways to clean up files you no longer need is by using Disk Cleanup.

If prompted, select the drive that you want to clean up, and then select OK.

In the Disk Cleanup dialog box in the Description section, select Clean up system files.

If prompted, select the drive that you want to clean up, and then select OK.

In the Disk Cleanup dialog box, on the Disk Cleanup tab, select the check boxes for the file types that you want to delete, and then select OK. To remove data from a previous installation of Windows, select the Previous Windows installation(s) check box.

In the message that appears, select Delete files.

Go back to Computer in File Explorer, select the drive you cleaned up, and then select Refresh. If you need to free more space (the drive is still marked red), go to the next tip.

Uninstall desktop apps you don’t need any more in Programs and Features.

To uninstall or change a program

Select a program, and then click Uninstall. Some programs include the option to change or repair the program in addition to uninstalling it, but many simply offer the option to uninstall. To change a program, click Change or Repair. If you’re prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

Note: If the program you want to uninstall isn’t listed, it might not have been written for this version of Windows. To uninstall the program, check the information that came with the program.

You can also uninstall Store apps you don’t want anymore.

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Settings, and then tap Change PC settings. (If you’re using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, click Settings, and then click Change PC settings.)

Select Search and apps, and then select App sizes to see how much space each app is taking on the local drive.

Once you locate an app you want to uninstall, select the app, and then select Uninstall.

Note: This will only uninstall Store apps from your user account.

If you have photos, music, videos, or other files that you want to keep but don’t necessarily want on your PC, consider saving them to removable media, such as an external drive, USB drive, DVD, or cloud storage. You’ll still be able to view those files as long as your PC is connected to the removable media or cloud storage, but they won’t take up space on your PC.

Open This PC by swiping in from the right edge of the screen, tapping Search (or if you’re using a mouse, pointing to the upper-right corner of the screen, moving the mouse pointer down, and then clicking Search), entering This PC in the search box, and then tapping or clicking This PC.

In the Search This PC box in the upper-right, enter size:huge.

Select the View menu, select Sort by, and then select Size. The largest files display at the top.

Once you locate a file you want to delete, press and hold or right-click the file and then select Delete.

Warning: Deleting files from the WinSxS folder or deleting the entire WinSxS folder might severely damage your system and make it impossible to restart or update your PC.

The WinSxS folder is located in the Windows folder on your PC (for example, C:\Windows\WinSxS). It stores the Windows Component Store files, which are used to support functions needed to customize and update Windows. You can use the Task Scheduler to reduce the size of this folder.

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search. (If you’re using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, and then click Search.)

Enter Control Panel in the search box, and then select Control Panel.

Select System and Security, and then select Schedule tasks under Administrative Tools.

Select the arrow next to Task Scheduler Library, select Microsoft, select Windows, and then select Servicing.

Select StartComponentCleanup, and then select Run under Selected item.

Files that are available offline take up more space on your PC. OneDrive also needs 200 MB of free space on your PC to sync your files. To free up space, you can make some files or folders online-only.

If you have Access all files offline turned on, you need to first turn off this setting before you can make files online-only.

If you have pending uploads to OneDrive, you need to wait until they are completed before making files online-only.

On the Start screen, select OneDrive to open the OneDrive app.

Browse to the file or folder you want to make online-only.

Swipe down or right-click the file or folder to select it.

Select Make online-only. To make your entire OneDrive online-only, swipe in from the right edge of the screen (or, if you’re using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, and move the mouse pointer up), select Settings, select Options, and then select Make all files online-only.

Open File Explorer by swiping in from the right edge of the screen, tapping Search (or if you’re using a mouse, pointing to the upper-right corner of the screen, moving the mouse pointer down, and then clicking Search), entering File Explorer in the search box, and then tapping or clicking File Explorer.

Browse to the file or folder you want to make online-only.

Press and hold or right-click the file or folder, and then choose Make available online-only. To make your entire OneDrive online-only, press and hold or right-click OneDrive, and then choose Make available online-only.

The removable drive will need to be formatted with the NTFS file system.

To check space availability

Before you move your OneDrive files, you should make sure the removable drive has enough space to store your files. Follow these steps:

Open File Explorer by swiping in from the right edge of the screen, tapping Search (or if you’re using a mouse, pointing to the upper-right corner of the screen, moving the mouse pointer down, and then clicking Search), entering File Explorer in the search box, and then tapping or clicking File Explorer.

Press and hold or right-click OneDrive.

Select Properties, and then look at the amount next to Size on disk.

In File Explorer, select This PC, and then see how much space is free on the removable drive.

To move your OneDrive files

First, you’ll need to create a folder on the removable drive for your OneDrive files. After you create the folder, follow these steps to move your files:

Warning: Moving your OneDrive files will cancel any pending uploads.

In File Explorer, press and hold or right-click OneDrive.

Select Properties, and then select the Location tab.

Browse to the removable drive, and then select Select Folder.

In the OneDrive Properties dialog box, select OK.

In the Move Folder dialog box, select Yes. Your OneDrive files have been moved to the new drive. You can now delete the old OneDrive location.

Note: For more help with moving files in OneDrive, contact customer support.

A longer-term strategy for expanding your PC’s storage capacity is to add removable storage, including SD cards, USB flash drives, DVDs or CDs, or using cloud storage or network drives. Removable storage options:

Secure Digital (SD) cards. There are few different types of cards, including SD (32.0×24 mm), miniSD (21.5×20 mm), and microSD (15.0×11 mm). It’s important to check with your PC manufacturer to understand which types of SD cards options are available on your PC.

Tip: If you’re using Surface, you can add up to 64 GB of storage with a microSD card. On Surface RT, the microSD card reader is located under the kickstand on the right side. On Surface Pro, the card reader is located on the right edge, above the power connection.

USB and external drives. Most PCs include one or more USB ports that you can plug a USB flash or external drives into. Some newer PCs include a USB 3.0 port, which includes faster transfer speeds of up to 10 times USB 2.0. While you can use a USB 2.0 flash drive in a USB 3.0 port (at USB transfer speeds), you can’t use a USB 3.0 flash drive with a USB 2.0 port. Check with your PC manufacturer to understand which USB ports your PC supports.

DVDs and CDs. If your PC has a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray Disc drive that can read and write to a blank disc, you can use the drive to store data, much like an SD or USB flash drive. Here’s how: When you insert a blank disc into the PC, choose Like a USB flash drive from the list of options.

Cloud storage using OneDrive. Windows comes with the OneDrive app, which helps you get to your free OneDrive storage in the cloud, sometimes referred to as online storage. You can save files to OneDrive and work with them in several different ways: on the website (OneDrive.com), with the app for Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1, with the desktop apps for a PC or Mac, and with apps for your mobile devices.

To see how much storage is available, and add more storage, swipe in from the right edge of the screen (or, if you’re using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen), select Settings, select Change PC settings, and then select OneDrive. You can also go to Manage storage on the OneDrive website.

How to Clean Up and Make Space on Your Windows “C” Drive

Clean up your C: drive properly without causing the computer to crash.

The all-important “C” drive is, for most people, the core of the PC, where the operating system is installed and all the crucial system files are kept. Inevitably, this is also the drive that gets filled up most easily due to endless Windows updates, temporary files of applications, downloaded files that you forget about, and the fact that by default, everything saves to the “C” drive. Here we show you how to clean up your C drive in Windows, recover some space, and subsequently get it running again.

1. Delete Temporary Files

Manually removing temporary files in Windows gives the most immediate results to clean up the C drive and regain space.

Below, we show you some tricks that clean out your various temporary files automatically, but those methods (like Storage Sense and Disk Clean-up) won’t do a complete job of clearing out temporary files, and there’s a good chance that the biggest, most hard-drive-hogging temporary files will remain in your Temp folder for a bit longer. (The automatic methods will wait for files to reach a certain age – one week, usually – before deleting them.)

Note: make sure you’re not running anything when deleting temporary files manually. If you delete temporary files related to an app you’re currently running, it may crash, and you may lose whatever you were working on at that moment.

You can find a summary account of all these temporary files from “Storage” under “System.”

To remove these temporary files, go one level deeper and erase what you don’t need. These files include downloads, Windows Update Cleanup, diagnostic data, viewer database files, thumbnails, Recycle Bin data, and more.

2. Storage Sense

Windows has a handy feature called Storage Sense, which monitors the storage space on your PC, then jumps in and cleans things up if you’re running low. It does basic things like clean up your Recycle Bin, remove old files in your Downloads folder, and delete temporary files on your PC.

While Windows 11 has Storage Sense directly under “Storage Management,” this feature can be accessed from “Turn on Storage Sense” in System Settings in Windows 10. Again, it’s faster to find either of these terms from the search menu. On some systems, you may see this option as “configure Storage Sense or run it now.”

Click “Configure Storage Sense or run it now,” then in the new window, click the slider under Storage Sense so that it’s “On.” You can then use the drop-down menu below to choose whether you want it to run when you’re low on space, daily, weekly or monthly.

In Storage Sense, you’ll also see that you can automatically delete files that have been in the Recycle Bin for a certain amount of time. This applies to your Downloads folder as well (which, from my experience, is definitely a place where unused files tend to outstay their welcome).

There’s also an option called “free up space now” which takes just a few minutes to erase many of these unnecessary files. This allows you to immediate recover several gigabytes of storage space.

3. Scan for Large Files on Your Hard Drive

Using Windows Explorer, you can scan for files based on size throughout your entire hard drive. The amount of times I’ve found hefty redundant files sitting around for years is unbelievable.

To do this search, open a Windows Explorer window, select your “C” drive, then click the “Search (C:)” search box at the top right of the window.

Type “size:” to get a bunch of autofill options showing varying sizes of files to filter for. You can use one of these presets or, if you want to get more specific about the size of file you’re looking for, type “size:>1gb” to look for files over 1GB in size and so on.

Just by testing this, I’ve discovered an old Android 7.1 VM that I really don’t need anymore. Just don’t delete anything that looks important. (For example, stuff from the “C:Windows folder” or game files that tend to be quite large.)

4. Uninstall Windows Shovelware and Space-Hungry Apps

In the “Apps & Features” window (you’ll find it by right-clicking the Start button), you can sort the list by “Size” to see which applications are the most HDD-hungry. You may be surprised by the results and may wish to remove apps as appropriate. Think about whether you really need all those space-hungry apps and delete as appropriate.

Another thing that may surprise you is that you’re the proud owner of games like Bubble Witch 3 Saga and Minecraft, which you never wanted in the first place! Simply uninstalling them from the “Apps & Features” list won’t suffice, however, and you will need to remove them using the Powershell. To do this, read our guide on how to uninstall pre-installed Windows apps.

5. Clean Up Disk Space

You’re probably aware of Windows’s built-in Disk Clean-Up utility but have not been using it. This is the first place to look to free up some space.

To start using it, launch Windows Explorer, right-click on the C drive and select “Properties” from the list.

Once the Properties window is open, click “Disk Cleanup” to open the utility. Here, in the “files to delete” box, select all the checkboxes like System memory error dump files, Recycle Bin, set up log files, etc.

Once you have selected all the checkboxes you want, click on “OK” to free up the disk space occupied by the above files. How much space you free up depends on how badly you’ve neglected your “C” drive. You can also clean up the system files to get back additional lost space.

6. Disable Hibernation in Windows 10/11

Hibernation is a handy feature you can use in Windows to easily turn off your computer while saving the current state so that you can resume your work when you power it on. That said, it can take a huge amount of disk space, as it reserves the amount of space on your hard drive equal to how much content is saved in your RAM. (So potentially, the more RAM you have, the more disk space it uses.)

Click on the “choose what the power buttons do” link in the pane on the left. This action will take you to the system settings window.

Click “Change settings that are currently unavailable.” This action will enable all the disabled options.

Scroll down and uncheck the “Hibernate” checkbox to disable hibernation. If it’s already unchecked, you don’t need to do anything else.

7. Delete Browser Cache and Cookies

Temporary Internet files like the browser cache and cookies take up a little bit of your C drive space, so clearing those temporary files will grant you additional free space.

8. Remove Old Windows Update Files, Previous Installations

Windows has a tendency to hold onto old (and mostly redundant) system files. For the most part, you can delete these files, particularly if you installed your current version of Windows over a previous version. To do this:

1. Open Windows Explorer, right-click the C drive and select “Properties.”

2. Click “Disk CleanUp,” then in the new window, click “Clean up system files” to open the advanced disk cleanup window.

3. Select the “Windows upgrade log files” checkbox and, if you have anything there, the “Previous Windows installation(s)” checkbox.

Unbeknownst to me, my laptop still had plenty of space related to Windows Update Cleanup and Windows upgrade log files, using up nearly 3.5GB of hard drive space.

Cleaning up the unnecessary files consumes a few minutes but is worth the extra space gained on C drive.

There are other checkboxes here, but for the most part, they don’t use up a ton of space and can be left alone. When you’re ready, click “OK” to clean up your hard drive.

9. Reduce the Size of the WinSxS Folder

The WinSxS folder is located in the C drive of your PC at the Windows folder location – for example, “C:\Windows\WinSxS.” It stores the necessary files to recover your system. You can easily reduce the size of this folder, but this comes with the below warning.

Warning: do not delete any files directly from the WinSxS folder or the folder itself. This would greatly damage your system and make it impossible to restart or recover.

1. It’s very important to tread cautiously and handle these files directly from Task Scheduler.

3. Wait a few minutes for the operation to finish.

10. Make OneDrive and File Explorer Files Online Only

OneDrive and FileExplorer files can be made online-only. This would greatly save the amount of space you use on C drive. If you have reliable, fast Internet, you should benefit from this amazing space-saving tip.

For OneDrive, select the OneDrive app from a Start menu search in Windows 11 and searchbox of Windows 10. Sign in using your Microsoft account used in the local PC. Go to the OneDrive folder by clicking “Next.”

Right-click on any OneDrive subfolder, and if they take up a lot of space, make them “online only” instead of putting them on the device to always be available.

The same methods above can be repeated for any files or folders in the File Explorer window. By making them online only, you can access them whenever you want. Of course, if you have some important data you always need access to, you will want to make it available on your device.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Are the methods to clean up the C drive similar for Windows 10 and Windows 11?

Yes, the methods to clean up the C drive are very similar for Windows 10 and Windows 11. There may be minor variations in the placement of some menu options, but the methods to clean up the C drive are applicable for both Windows 10 and Windows 11.

2. Should I use disk cleanup software for the C drive?

You should always opt for built-in Windows methods to clean up the disk space, including your C drive. We have extensively covered many of these native techniques in this tutorial.

Periodic Microsoft Windows updates are the surest means to verify the integrity of your system. Third-party software does many of the same things as the native tools: they can identify temporary files, pending update files, files in the Recycle bin, and so forth.

However, if they accidentally delete any important files, such as WinSxS folder files, that can cause you a lot of trouble. It can prevent you from rolling back updates or troubleshooting Windows problems on your own. By and large, I would not recommend using any third-party software to clean up your Windows drive. It does more harm than good. Avoid tools such as CCleaner and Wondershare RecoverIt.

3. Why is my C Drive automatically filling up?

With regular use, the C drive will keep filling up. Each file and folder you create (on any drive) has an impact on the available space in the C drive. Did you finish a System Restore? It will definitely allocate a certain amount of space in the C drive.

If you haven’t updated your computer in a long while, it can become vulnerable to bloatware, and it can be hard to delete files. Of course, we often forget to delete temporary files, unnecessary programs, and space intensive applications. These all play a role in making the C drive fill up automatically.

We have seen some of the best ways to clean up the Windows C drive. It’s good to go through this routine every now and then, but it’s advisable to make sure it doesn’t fill up in the first place. Read on to learn some native ways to clean the Windows registry. If you want to keep streamlining your Windows setup, see how to install Chromium on Windows. We also have a guide on how you can view network adapter details in Windows.

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How to Clean Up C Drive in Windows 10 With Disk Cleanup Tool

by James, Updated on: May 9, 2022

Many people encountered low disk space issue in Windows 10 laptop or desktop. Windows Updates, system log, temp, programs and many other types of files write into C drive continuously, so C drive becomes full sooner or later. If you replace disk with a new one, hard disk manufacturers will be very glad. In this article, I’ll introduce how to clean up C: drive in Windows 10 to reclaim disk space. You may run Disk Cleanup in Windows 10 via command or GUI wizard. If you still cannot get enough free space, try additional efficient methods.

Content:

1. About Windows 10 Disk Cleanup utility

Disk Cleanup is a Microsoft Windows computer native included maintenance utility that is used to free up disk space on hard disk drives. This utility is easy and fast, it searches and analyzes the hard drive for files that are no longer of any use, and then removes the unnecessary files safely. These unnecessary and junk files include Windows Updates, Temporary files, Logs, Cache, files in Recycle Bin, etc.

You can run Disk Cleanup in all Windows versions from XP, however, in some Windows version such as Server 2008 and 2012, Disk Cleanup is not enabled by default, so you need to manually install this component. Starting with Windows 10 version 1803, Disk Cleanup are incorporated into Windows 10’s Settings app, however, the standalone Disk Cleanup utility is still available.

2. How to open Disk Cleanup in Windows 10

There are 3 common ways to open Disk Cleanup in Windows 10 laptop/desktop/tablet computer:

Select C: drive or other one that you want to clean up.

② Open Windows File Explorer, right click C: drive and select Properties.

Click Disk Cleanup in the pop-up window.

③ Search from task bar at bottom left. Type clean then Disk Cleanup is shown on the top.

3. How to clean up C drive in Windows 10 with wizard

When the Disk Cleanup window is opened, it is very easy to complete the next steps, only several clicks are needed.

Steps to clean up C drive in Windows 10 with Disk Cleanup:

1. Click the check-boxes to select the files that you want to remove and click OK to begin. If you are not sure about the meaning of these files, click it and you’ll see corresponding description on the bottom.

2. Confirm this operation by clicking Delete Files.

After that, Disk Cleanup will begin deleting the unnecessary and junk files.

3. Repeat to Clean up system files.

4. How to clean up disk in Windows 10 with command

There are 3 ways to run disk cleanup in Windows 10 via command line, select the one that fit for your needs.

① Command with all files selected

② Clean up all junk files automatically

Then Disk Cleanup will delete all junk files automatically and then show you a dialog box with result.

③ Clean up specified junk files automatically

5. Additional options after cleaning up disk

If you did not get plenty of free space after running Disk Cleanup in Windows 10, the 3 methods below are very useful.

① Move installed apps and games

When installing programs, many people use default settings to C: drive. The more you installed, the less space left. It’s better to install programs to separated partition. Better than previous versions, Windows 10 can move applications installed from Windows Store to other partition without reinstalling.

How to clean C drive in Windows 10 by moving applications:

② Save files to new location

Windows 10 has another new option to save new files of apps, documents, music, pictures, and videos to other place, steps:

③ Move more free space to C: drive

If you cannot reclaim large amount of disk space, C drive may be full again in the near future, so you’d better allocate more space to C drive. In most of computers, there is free space in other partition on the same disk, NIUBI Partition Editor can move these free space to C drive without losing data. Operating System, programs and associated setting keep the same with before.

Download NIUBI Partition Editor Free Edition and follow the steps in the video:

Besides shrinking, moving and extending partition, this free tool help you copy, convert, defrag, hide, wipe partition, scan bad sectors, optimize file system and much more.