Free up drive space in Windows

If you used Disk Cleanup to free up space on your device and then see a Low Disk Space error, it’s possible that your Temp folder is quickly filling up with application (.appx) files that are used by Microsoft Store. For more info, see Low Disk Space error due to a full Temp folder.

Storage Sense can automatically free up drive space for you by getting rid of items that you don't need, like temporary files and items in your Recycle Bin. For more info, see Manage drive space with Storage Sense.

If your system doesn't have Storage Sense, you can use the Disk Cleanup tool to delete temporary files and system files from your device.

1. In the search box on the taskbar, type disk cleanup, then select it from the results.

2. Select the drive you want to clean up files for, then select OK.

3. Select the check box next to the type of files you want to delete. (To view a description of each type of file, select the name.) By default, Downloaded Program Files, Temporary Internet Files, and Thumbnails are selected. Be sure to clear those check boxes if you don't want to delete those files.

4. To free up even more space, select Clean up system files, select a drive, select OK. When the system has done its calculations, select the type of system files you want to delete. Disk Cleanup will take a few moments to calculate the amount of space that can be freed up.

   : If it’s been fewer than 10 days since you upgraded to Windows 10, your previous version of Windows will be listed as a system file you can delete. If you need to free up drive space, you can delete it, but keep in mind that you'll be deleting your Windows.old folder, which contains files that give you the option to go back to your previous version of Windows. If you delete your previous version of Windows, this can't be undone. (You won't be able to go back to your previous version of Windows.)

5. After you’ve selected the types of files you want to delete, select OK, and then select Delete files in the confirmation window to start the cleanup.

Windows 10 may indicate that it needs more space to get the latest Windows 10 feature update. You can use an external storage device to help you complete the update.

To learn more, see Free up space for Windows updates. 

Personal files such as videos, music, photos, and documents can take up a lot of space on your device. To see which files are using the most space:

1. Select File Explorer  from the taskbar and find the files you want to move.

2. Under This PC in the menu on the left, select a folder to see what files are saved in it. The Videos, Music, Pictures, and Downloads folders usually contain the largest files that you’ve saved to your device.

3. To see the size of the files in a folder, select the View tab, then select Details. Right-click in the open space and then select Sort by > Size to show the largest files at the top of the list.

4. If there are files you no longer need on your device, you can either delete them or move them to an external storage device like a USB drive or an SD card.

To move photos, music, videos, or other files that you want to keep but don't use very often, consider saving them to an external storage device like a USB drive or an SD card. You'll still be able to use them when the drive is connected, but they won't take up space on your PC.

1. Connect an external storage device like a USB drive or SD card to your PC.

2. Select File Explorer  from the taskbar and go to the folder that contains the files you want to move.

3. Select the files, select the Home tab, and then select Move to and select Choose location.

4. Select the external storage device you connected in the location list, and then select Move.

Saving new files to another drive will help prevent low space problems on that drive in the future, so you won’t have to move your files to another drive repeatedly. Instead of saving all your new files to the default drive, you can save some of them to a different drive that has more free space.

1. Select Start  > Settings  > System  > Storage .
   Open Storage settings

2. Scroll down and under More storage settings, select Change where new content is saved.

3. For each content type, select a drive from the drop-down menu. If the drive you want to use isn't listed there, make sure it's connected to your PC.

You can save space by turning on OneDrive Files On-Demand, which stores a smaller placeholder file on your hard drive instead of the full-size file that's stored in your OneDrive account in the cloud. You'll be able to get to your OneDrive files from your PC without having to use up hard-drive space downloading full-size versions of them all. See Save disk space with OneDrive Files On-Demand for Windows for more info.

Sometimes a virus or other malware can consume significant hard-drive space by corrupting your system files. If you suspect your PC is infected with malware, use an antivirus program like Windows Security to run a virus scan and cleanup. If this doesn't fix the problem, you might need to reset your PC.

If you’ve followed the instructions here but still need help freeing up space on your device, you can contact Microsoft support to chat with a support agent. This is also recommended if your attempts to free up drive space trigger particular error codes that you need help resolving.

When there isn’t enough free space available to install an update, a pop-up notification will prompt you that additional space is required to install the update. 

When you select Fix issues, you'll be informed about how much additional space is needed. You'll also be notified that you can use an external storage device so that you don’t need to free up quite as much space on your system drive. Learn how to free up space to install Windows updates. 

The total free disk space your device requires to complete an update varies. Typically, feature updates require 6 GB – 11 GB or more of free space, while quality updates require 2 GB – 3 GB or more. Learn about the difference between a feature update and a quality update. 

You need disk space to download the update, download new versions of any optional features and languages that are currently installed, and to apply the update. Additional space is temporarily required to support removal of the update (typically for 10 days). This space can be reclaimed after the update is completed. To do this, select Start  > Settings  > System  > Storage > Configure Storage Sense or run it now. Scroll down, and under Free up space now, select Clean now.
Open Storage settings 

The update is compressed to reduce download size.

The space required to complete a feature update depends on two factors: which update path is followed and the size of optional content and other updates that apply to your PC when the feature update is installed.

Windows follows three different feature update paths, depending on the amount of disk space currently available.

1. For PCs with plenty of free disk space
   Windows automatically tries to complete more of the update process in the background while you use your PC. This significantly reduces the time your PC will be offline (or unusable) during the update, although it might temporarily use more disk space to complete the update. Learn more about our efforts to reduce offline time during updates (English only at this time).

2. For PCs with limited free space but still enough to complete the update automatically
   Windows will automatically optimize for reducing the amount of free disk space required to install the update. This will result in a longer offline install time.

3. For PCs that don't have enough space to automatically install the update
   Windows will prompt you to free up disk space or use external storage to temporarily extend the storage on your PC. If you use an external storage device, Windows won’t need as much free space on the system drive as it temporarily uses your external storage.

Across each of these update paths, the total amount of free disk space required will vary, depending on the optional content installed and other updates that apply to your PC. For example:

• Optional features. Many optional features available for Windows are pre-installed or acquired on demand by the system, or manually by you. You can see which ones are installed on your PC by going to Settings  > Apps  > Apps & features  > Optional features.
  Open Optional features settings
  These features range in size from less than 1 MB to almost 2 GB for the Windows Mixed Reality portal. You can reduce the amount of space required to install a feature update on your PC by uninstalling optional features you aren’t using.

• Languages installed. Windows is localized into many languages. Although many people only use one language at a time, some people switch between two or more languages. You can see which languages are installed on your PC by selecting Start  > Settings  > Time & Language  > Language .
  Open Language settings
  During each update, all language resources and any associated typing, text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and handwriting recognition resources must be updated. The content for each language can range from about 175 MB to more than 300 MB. You can reduce the amount of space required to install a feature update on your PC by uninstalling languages you aren’t using.

• Driver updates. OEMs and other hardware partners sometimes publish new graphics, networking, audio, and other drivers in conjunction with the new OS update. The size of these drivers can vary significantly, depending on your PC and on which drivers have been updated.

• OS quality updates. During a feature update, Windows tries to download and automatically install the latest quality update so that your PC is fully up to date when you start using it. Shortly after the feature update is released, the quality update for that feature update could be as small as a few hundred MB, but as more quality and security changes are implemented, the quality update can increase in size to 1 GB or more. If your PC is short on disk space, you can download and install the quality update after the feature update is complete.

Finally, Windows Update will temporarily disable hiberfile.sys, pagefile.sys, and other system files in order to use the space these files typically consume to apply the feature update. Any files that are disabled to apply the update will be automatically re-enabled when the update is complete. Because these files vary in size depending on how you use your PC and the amount of RAM your PC has, even in cases where two different PCs have the exact same OS image, the amount of free disk space required to complete an update may vary.

The combination of update path and features means there’s a wide range of free disk space required to complete an update. Here are a few examples for PCs updating to Windows version 1803: 

To check the total disk space left on your Windows 10 device, select File Explorer  from the taskbar, and then select This PC on the left. The available space for each drive will appear under the Devices and drives section.

It may be best to use an external storage device in the following cases:

• When access to the internet isn't available.

• When you need to store large files or a large number of files. In these situations, the files generally take longer to upload and it might cost more to store files.

Windows Update automatically offers updates to eligible devices. To double check that your device is up to date, select Start  > Settings  > Update & Security  > Windows Update , and then select Check for updates.
Check for updates

Learn more about Windows Update

Windows 11 requires a 64 GB processor to run.

When considering what storage hardware to use in your device, don't look only at the hardware's storage capacity. Often, the speed of the storage is more important than its size. Devices with slow storage hardware, such as those labeled "HDD" are typically slower to use than those using faster storage hardware, such as those labeled "SSD" or "eMMC."

You don't need to remove everything from your hard drive to update your device, but you'll need to free up enough space to complete the update.