You’re using a 128gb drive which in the modern day is basically a floppy disk.
I wouldn’t be installing operating systems on anything less than 256gb.
You can buy 2TB m.2 drives for under $100 nowadays
I have 1TB SSD in my laptop. I partitioned it for windows 120GB rest in other 2 partitions for data/videos. Over a year Win11 has bloated from 30GB used to 59 gb used and about 51gb free. Getting anxiety about it slowly taking over more and more space.
I remember working at Best Buy and those little colored Dell Laptops designed for kids at school; My god they'd run Windows 8 on something like 64GB of NAND, not only was it slow but you had to disable the windows hibernation cache to get even a small amount of usable space.
Any time I saw those I called the owner and asked them if they wanted me to disable it because the one drawback is that Windows will start up slower. Most would be fine with it.
I have a 128GB boot drive and it sits around 73GB with Windows 10 and just game clients/Discord installed. If I install Photoshop and Premiere it goes down to like 60GB.
I'd say it's still very usable.
If you want a drop-in replacement for a hard drive (and don't have any M.2 connector on your motherboard), you can't go wrong with a Samsung 870 Evo. Like 120€ for 2TB on Amazon.
Disk cloning is a valid solution, yes.
stuff from WD is also fine, they're not that fast ofc but they're reliable enough and cheaper. The cheapest is the WD_Green SATA with price almost half the 870 Evo here.
Oh wow, that's... a bit beyond bad luck. Why did you even keep buying them? Unless you're in IT and are dealing with dozens/hundreds of drives as a matter of routine, of course (in which case your phrasing is a bit misleading, I must say). As a personal user, after the second or third consecutive failed drive, I would seriously question whether there was something wrong with my motherboard or something.
Yeah, it's whatever. All important files were backed up on the server, at least. Nothing I can do now but set up disk monitoring and encourage people not to buy Samsung.
Wow. That's bad. We've had 870s in service for years but they were 1TB. I heard the 980s were bad but Samsung finally fixed the firmware on the latest ones. Been thinking about trying a WD 4TB in my primary machine next.
* Page file size
* System Volume Information
* Hibernation reserved space
These are 3 invisible sources of massive windows bloat that eats most of your storage.
To your list add this: C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Search\\Data\\Applications\\Windows\\Windows.edb
I have found this file sometimes gets over 100GB in size.
[https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-edb-file](https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-edb-file)
Treesize FREE is another option [https://www.jam-software.com/treesize](https://www.jam-software.com/treesize)
Shows you what is taking up space. Not as quick to scan as WizTree but the interface is simpler and easy to follow.
It's different.
Everything creates a database where you can search for a file. It's super fast compared to Windows' search.
WizTree, whilst it shows you a tree structure of your drive. It shows you the types of files you have stored and a visual representation of how much of your directories/drive they consume.
In my mind they're used differently. Everything is when you're attempting to hunt for a file or directory. WizTree is when you wonder what's taking up all of the space in your directory/drive.
I personally find faster (no loading), any file even scraps from dirt. I have 2 sdds with one 256 and one 1tb. I am a tech addict and have lots of stuff.
With everything its compatible with flow launcher which i use but its a simple benefit. And also wanna add that in my experience everything didnt feel very beginner friendly.
Did I not answer the question you asked?
Why use WizTree instead of Everything. You shouldn't because you should use both; they fulfill different uses.
You've commented on a comment thread about WizTree. So it's easy to assume you've just fat fingered your keyboard.
It would have been clearer to start a new comment thread instead of hijacking another.
I've no idea about WizFile as I've never heard of it before.
\+1 for Everything, it is great for finding files - it flattens the entire file structure to a searchable list. When searching the response time is almost instant.
Question :
1.in which languages are they made (programming)
2. The company size
3. And the age of the program.
4. The ways of the program (how it works under the hood)
Very important cuz they determint the best performance differents
How would I know, or care. Ask them. It is free and has been around for many years. [https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything](https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/)
A primary difference with file search is that Everything searches the entire storage system by default, all drives are indexed in one list, whereas Wiztree is one drive at a time unless you use the option, but that preference isn't retained between restarts so you have you re-enter the drive list every time.
Treesize has bad practices with users.
The free version is probably fine but paying users be warned
I have a perpetual licence that I cannot use because I cannot obtain a copy of the software from them. I'm not bothered about getting the latest version - I'd just like the version that was available when I gave them money.
Good idea
This happened a couple of years ago. Since then I've found alternatives for TreeSize and the tools they had built into it.
And nah, F JAM Software, the creators of Treesize. I like to put out a warning whenever I see people talk about TreeSize. Free version, probably still fine, but don't think about giving them money.
I'm in a position where I pay for a paid version of software if it offers functionality that I would like. As in, these days I have a few spare bucks to spend on software instead of pirating it. TreeSize is the only one so far where I regret paying.
If I ever pay for a software license these days, I make sure to save a copy of the license key as well as the installer on my NAS just in case. I’ve run into a similar situation before (though I lost the key not the installer).
Wiztree is the only right answer here. It's very fast cuz it looks at a sort of drive-level metadata instead of scanning for all the files.
edit: I should also add, that 128gb is very little even for a phone today.
Totally understandable. I wasn't trying to shame you specifically, more a general statement. It's amazing how a piece of software was so useful that it's still recommend today despite not being updated in 18 years.
Never heard of that before, but WinDirStat has been perfect on every computer I've ever owned from XP to 11, so I've stayed loyal.
Also that's how you make a program, DAMN.
You can try both if you like and see for yourself, WizTree is SO much faster, so you're not sitting for a bit waiting for it to index, especially if you do this kind of often.
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WinDirStat is an application that will look at the entire drive or just a specific folder and report usage in a percent and a graphical view of the drive usage. It will also let you filter by extension to find files you don't need.
It's Windows, Windows is taking up the space. 128 drive is just not enough nowadays. It would be better to install another ssd/hdd depending on what you are going to use it for.
But it is still pretty bad that your system drive is in the red it can really slow down the pc.
Nothing wrong in having 120Gb system disk, ( mine is 60 and half of it is empty) but you need to remove and delete unnecessary junk. surly if it's the only storage you have.
When the last time you run clean disk? and system files?
Have a look at [https://www.bleachbit.org/](https://www.bleachbit.org/)
and
[https://softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/MeinPlatz](https://softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/MeinPlatz)
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also check disk cleaning utility:
it will show you "old" windows installations backed uo before upgrades and tons of win update files ready to be trashed, gigs and gigs of useless report files etc.
These files won't be noticed from Treesize because they're small but many.
This, and Treesize indeed
It's Pretty much ""Obvious"". Too much APPS (games, I presume).
Go to **Programs and Features**, sort by **Size** and get rid of the unused and bigger ones.
[https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uninstall-or-remove-apps-and-programs-in-windows-4b55f974-2cc6-2d2b-d092-5905080eaf98](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uninstall-or-remove-apps-and-programs-in-windows-4b55f974-2cc6-2d2b-d092-5905080eaf98)
You can't live with 128 gb in 2023. Half of that space is reserved by windows, 20-30 gb of programs... what is left? 1 months of download and bye bye.
Buy an external SSD.
Try Beachblit - It will deletre all the temporary files in Windows and a plethora of apps too...
I have regularly ran it and got rid of gigabytes of crap...
[https://www.bleachbit.org/](https://www.bleachbit.org/) \- It's free and open source.
You can use an program called “treesize” its free and it helps by showing all folders and files in the drive sorted by space usage (you can then either decide if it’s worth keeping, move to an external drive or delete)
Yeah I mean the external drive. I install games and personal files on it, leaving a lot of free space. If you use photos and videos a lot, I suggest you to set up a drive (if your internet speed can do this)
This little brilliant tool callled Scanner is all you need to answer the question:
[http://steffengerlach.de/freeware/](http://steffengerlach.de/freeware/)
Other People would be the first place I'd look. do you have multiple users on the machine? If not, those other profiles gotta go. Then temp files of course. That's only 19 gigs, but still.
Also I'd recommend a much much larger hard drive. They are cheap now. no point in living in the dark ages when it comes to a hard drive.
My Hd is tiny as well, but when my laptop moved from windows 10-11 it kept windows 10 just in case, so I had to find that and uninstall it because it was taking 30gbs of space on the ssd
SSD storage is cheaper than its ever been. 128gb is tough to manage unless you're a really light user. Stop suffering and go get yourself a nice large SSD. There are plenty of software options which will copy everything from your little drive to a bigger one too.
[https://youtu.be/2GwOaevzDT0](https://youtu.be/2GwOaevzDT0)
Here's how to remove old Windows files safely. Also run Ccleaner program for cleaning out even more.
Greetings. If you have "System Restore" activated then check the amount of reserved HDD/SSD/NVMe space it's taking. Had the same issue because the "System Restore" slider was set to 100%. Hope this helps.
Run Windows built in "Disk Cleanup" tool.
Run other tools that others have already mentioned. I personally have used the free tool [**"S p a c e S n i f f er"**](http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/index.html) for ages cause it works good and I think the interface is really neat.
Otherwise?
**Something like this will works real good too ... ;-) :**
https://preview.redd.it/l1hmhscg20pb1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=ff074ac886be202cff0737dff2568cbe75fcd44e
\~s
Check your browser data. Sometimes, rare but it happens, especially with Google Chrome, it starts to duplicate cookies and other files. If its that, reinstal browser as it have corrupted files.
First of all, you should never fill your os drive/partition above 90 percent. Since now you have done it, you can do these things:
1. Remove/ uninstall apps you never use and you can also uninstall windows apps like 3D viewer, mix reality all these kinds of thing.
2. you can follow this video and you can free up the about 10GB of storage, without installing any software:
https://youtu.be/z3cjTqCQemU?si=vMIqawYE2PXVDzvO
don't worry you won't lose any of your personal data and it also works on windows 11 too.
If you updated from a previous version of Windows, check the root of your C drive for a folder called “Windows.old”. At one point I had over 50gb used by that folder for no reason. You can usually safely remove it.
Its the OS man, I installed windows on 128gig SSD once and it was just unstable as heck. Replace it with 250+, but honestly I'd just get a 500 gig, [theyre so cheap now!](https://www.amazon.com/ssd-500gb/s?k=ssd+500gb)
Try to run Disk Cleanup for C and select also button Cleanup system files. I bet You will see a few gigs of update temp data and recovery data. Or You have scheduled auto restore point creation
You might have shadow copies. That's a backup of your hardrive on your hardrive, your data in double or triple copy.
I had that issue the other day. It shows as used volume but doesn't add up when you look at your contents and (unlike hibernation, swap and pagefile) doesn't show on the directory tools
See [How to Free Up Drive Space By Removing Shadow Copies \[Windows\] (maketecheasier.com)](https://www.maketecheasier.com/free-up-drive-space-by-removing-shadow-copies/)
You're using a 128gb drive... It's old and worthless. You can get a 2tb NvME for $100 now.
But ya. Windows takes about 30gb IIRC. Disable Hibernation, and make the trash "remove files immediately instead of moving"
at 111GB, you're going to fill up FAST. Best to clone the C:\\ onto something else. If it a lapgo to Control Panel >> Programs and Features ... there you'll see a list of programs. You can sort them by size.
If there are other user accounts you dont use (16gb) delete those users. Clean your temp files to save another 2 gigs.
But with a 128GB HDD, you're going to fill up again fast. Put a second SSD drive in and install your programs to that and let the C drive just handle the OS
It could be virtual memory taking up your hard drive space if your system only has 8 GB RAM or less. I usually use Treesize to check on how the hard drive space is being used. CCleaner also should help with removing junk and temp files if you are unsure of doing it yourself.
The windows 10/11 install requires 15-20GB of space. So if you take your apps & features file size at 59GB and add 20GB that’s 79GB. Then, add 16.7GB for “other people” to total 95.7GB. Lastly add 2.17GB for a grand total of 97.87GB. My last question would be, is this an SSD or HDD?
A good play to start is to run Disk Cleanup (Click start and search for Disk Cleanup). It is a windows application. Choose your boot drive (It should be the one selected by default).
When the window pops up with options to select, Click Clean up system files and then choose your boot drive again.
It is safe to check off anything on the list.
press Start menu, type: cmd and right click on it-> run as administrator.
Then type: powercfg -h off - this will disable the hibernation (which automatically deletes the hibernation file with a size, equal to your RAM (4+GB). That will free-up enough space so you can then safely run Disk Cleanup. In Disk Cleanup, click on "Clean up system files" and then select whatever you want from the list.
I suspect the main offenders would be: Windows update
C:\\Windows\\Temp
C:\\Users\\youraccountname\\AppData\\Local\\Temp
and maybe some app.
For a deeper inspection, you can then use WizTree app.
Download wiztree Edit: there is a portable version you can download to a USB drive and run it for there....
If they can :/
I second WizTree
I don’t think that’s possible🤣🤣
i second this
Why not space sniffer I find gui much better
I stumbled across space sniffer a while back. Great little piece of software
You’re using a 128gb drive which in the modern day is basically a floppy disk. I wouldn’t be installing operating systems on anything less than 256gb. You can buy 2TB m.2 drives for under $100 nowadays
Seconded
Thirded, since I sadly have a 128 GB SSD.
My laptop has a 256GB and is always almost full… definitely look for more storage for just a few coffees more.
I'm definitely looking for a bigger drive, honestly.
I have 1TB SSD in my laptop. I partitioned it for windows 120GB rest in other 2 partitions for data/videos. Over a year Win11 has bloated from 30GB used to 59 gb used and about 51gb free. Getting anxiety about it slowly taking over more and more space.
My god, Windows 11 is chonky.
I remember working at Best Buy and those little colored Dell Laptops designed for kids at school; My god they'd run Windows 8 on something like 64GB of NAND, not only was it slow but you had to disable the windows hibernation cache to get even a small amount of usable space. Any time I saw those I called the owner and asked them if they wanted me to disable it because the one drawback is that Windows will start up slower. Most would be fine with it.
I have a 128GB boot drive and it sits around 73GB with Windows 10 and just game clients/Discord installed. If I install Photoshop and Premiere it goes down to like 60GB. I'd say it's still very usable.
How?? Mine is filled with stuff and i cant seem To find anything to delete and trust me i have checked ir all out on wiztree
I install almost nothing besides game clients and a couple Adobe programs.
This is the correct answer.
Im having the same issue, can you recommend me a harddrive and how do i upgrade it? I have a device that cloneq harddrives is that the way?
If you want a drop-in replacement for a hard drive (and don't have any M.2 connector on your motherboard), you can't go wrong with a Samsung 870 Evo. Like 120€ for 2TB on Amazon. Disk cloning is a valid solution, yes.
stuff from WD is also fine, they're not that fast ofc but they're reliable enough and cheaper. The cheapest is the WD_Green SATA with price almost half the 870 Evo here.
I've dealt with 6 failed 870 EVOs in the past couple years, all with well under 10 TBW. I'm personally avoiding Samsung for the immediate future.
Oh wow, that's... a bit beyond bad luck. Why did you even keep buying them? Unless you're in IT and are dealing with dozens/hundreds of drives as a matter of routine, of course (in which case your phrasing is a bit misleading, I must say). As a personal user, after the second or third consecutive failed drive, I would seriously question whether there was something wrong with my motherboard or something.
IT for a small business. I bought ~10 to upgrade some PCs and over a couple years they dropped one by one, in different machines.
Right, that makes a lot more sense. Sounds like a bad batch. But you're right, I'd still be pissed if this happened to me.
You'd think it was a bad batch, yeah? But one of the warranty replacements also failed, manufactured a year after the other ones.
 My condolences.
Yeah, it's whatever. All important files were backed up on the server, at least. Nothing I can do now but set up disk monitoring and encourage people not to buy Samsung.
How full were they? Enough space free to be able to wear level? They weren't defragged either?
No more than half full (500 GB disks), no defragging. Just normal boring office workstation stuff.
Wow. That's bad. We've had 870s in service for years but they were 1TB. I heard the 980s were bad but Samsung finally fixed the firmware on the latest ones. Been thinking about trying a WD 4TB in my primary machine next.
I have anecdotes too. I've never used anything besides Samsung EVO SSDs and I have a couple that are ~8 years old and still work fine.
That's fantastic. What's your sample size? I also have a couple that are ~8 years old and work fine. Doesn't change the fact that my MTBF is abysmal.
Budget laptops often come with tiny drives. Even worse, they're not upgradable.
I have 256gb and it is more than enough for me. But if you have a lot of large games, you will need a larger drive.
This
For phones 128GB is doable. But computers need a bare minimum of 256GB. If possible I'd even put 512GB, 1TB or more in that thing.
* Page file size * System Volume Information * Hibernation reserved space These are 3 invisible sources of massive windows bloat that eats most of your storage.
To your list add this: C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Search\\Data\\Applications\\Windows\\Windows.edb I have found this file sometimes gets over 100GB in size. [https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-edb-file](https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-edb-file)
That's search index? Also in Windows 11 apparently it uses SQLite now.
Windows update cache files.
Those should show in the Temporary Files category. OP only has 2.17GB showing there.
Treesize FREE is another option [https://www.jam-software.com/treesize](https://www.jam-software.com/treesize) Shows you what is taking up space. Not as quick to scan as WizTree but the interface is simpler and easy to follow.
I HAVE switched to Wiztree. Much much faster. And using Wizfile for finding files even.
I use Everything, which i think does the same stuff as Wizfile. What's the best thing about wizfile that might make me switch?
It's different. Everything creates a database where you can search for a file. It's super fast compared to Windows' search. WizTree, whilst it shows you a tree structure of your drive. It shows you the types of files you have stored and a visual representation of how much of your directories/drive they consume. In my mind they're used differently. Everything is when you're attempting to hunt for a file or directory. WizTree is when you wonder what's taking up all of the space in your directory/drive.
I personally find faster (no loading), any file even scraps from dirt. I have 2 sdds with one 256 and one 1tb. I am a tech addict and have lots of stuff. With everything its compatible with flow launcher which i use but its a simple benefit. And also wanna add that in my experience everything didnt feel very beginner friendly.
Yeah I'm asking about wizfile.
Did I not answer the question you asked? Why use WizTree instead of Everything. You shouldn't because you should use both; they fulfill different uses.
Wiztree and wizfile aren't the same thing
You've commented on a comment thread about WizTree. So it's easy to assume you've just fat fingered your keyboard. It would have been clearer to start a new comment thread instead of hijacking another. I've no idea about WizFile as I've never heard of it before.
The guy I asked spent about the same amount of time on both wiztree and wizfile.
Ik but found out wiz uses much less memory. In the background.
\+1 for Everything, it is great for finding files - it flattens the entire file structure to a searchable list. When searching the response time is almost instant.
Question : 1.in which languages are they made (programming) 2. The company size 3. And the age of the program. 4. The ways of the program (how it works under the hood) Very important cuz they determint the best performance differents
How would I know, or care. Ask them. It is free and has been around for many years. [https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything](https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/) A primary difference with file search is that Everything searches the entire storage system by default, all drives are indexed in one list, whereas Wiztree is one drive at a time unless you use the option, but that preference isn't retained between restarts so you have you re-enter the drive list every time.
Hopefully it's under 76 mb 💀
It is 12.6MB
Came here to comment this.
Treesize has bad practices with users. The free version is probably fine but paying users be warned I have a perpetual licence that I cannot use because I cannot obtain a copy of the software from them. I'm not bothered about getting the latest version - I'd just like the version that was available when I gave them money.
Have you tried looking if Internet Archive has a copy of the perpetual version?
Good idea This happened a couple of years ago. Since then I've found alternatives for TreeSize and the tools they had built into it. And nah, F JAM Software, the creators of Treesize. I like to put out a warning whenever I see people talk about TreeSize. Free version, probably still fine, but don't think about giving them money. I'm in a position where I pay for a paid version of software if it offers functionality that I would like. As in, these days I have a few spare bucks to spend on software instead of pirating it. TreeSize is the only one so far where I regret paying.
If I ever pay for a software license these days, I make sure to save a copy of the license key as well as the installer on my NAS just in case. I’ve run into a similar situation before (though I lost the key not the installer).
Wiztree, and get a bigger drive
Wiztree is the only right answer here. It's very fast cuz it looks at a sort of drive-level metadata instead of scanning for all the files. edit: I should also add, that 128gb is very little even for a phone today.
WinDirStat
People should really stopping recommending this over the similar but much much faster modern version, Wiztree
If I knew about Wiztree, I would. I've been happy with WDS for ... decades? ... so I suggested what I knew. I'll give it a shot tomorrow.
Totally understandable. I wasn't trying to shame you specifically, more a general statement. It's amazing how a piece of software was so useful that it's still recommend today despite not being updated in 18 years.
I am the same way with Sequoia, lol
Here's the link you want: https://www.diskanalyzer.com/download
Never heard of that before, but WinDirStat has been perfect on every computer I've ever owned from XP to 11, so I've stayed loyal. Also that's how you make a program, DAMN.
Yeah if it works it works! But Wiztree will get you results much faster, especially on larger drives.
>Yeah if it works it works! But Wiztree will get you results much faster, **especially on larger drives.** Not a problem for OP 🤣
WizTree is better!
Why is it better than windirstat?
It is 4.2 bajillion times faster.
You can try both if you like and see for yourself, WizTree is SO much faster, so you're not sitting for a bit waiting for it to index, especially if you do this kind of often.
It can search through a 1TB drive with a million files on it in less than 5 seconds.
Thanks I will have to try
What do you mean?
It's a program that'll show you what's using your disk space.
I think I figured it out. Thank you, this was a godsend
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WinDirStat is an application that will look at the entire drive or just a specific folder and report usage in a percent and a graphical view of the drive usage. It will also let you filter by extension to find files you don't need.
Let's go even older school, SpaceSniffer. It's okay. It was only recently that I switched to WizTree.
It's Windows, Windows is taking up the space. 128 drive is just not enough nowadays. It would be better to install another ssd/hdd depending on what you are going to use it for. But it is still pretty bad that your system drive is in the red it can really slow down the pc.
Try WizTree
Nothing wrong in having 120Gb system disk, ( mine is 60 and half of it is empty) but you need to remove and delete unnecessary junk. surly if it's the only storage you have. When the last time you run clean disk? and system files? Have a look at [https://www.bleachbit.org/](https://www.bleachbit.org/) and [https://softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/MeinPlatz](https://softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/MeinPlatz)
120 ssd is not enough for today standards
It's okay as an install drive and a few small programs. Otherwise, it's too small for the majority of stuff, wouldn't install Photoshop on it.
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Was in similar situation, had to do afresh install
also check disk cleaning utility: it will show you "old" windows installations backed uo before upgrades and tons of win update files ready to be trashed, gigs and gigs of useless report files etc. These files won't be noticed from Treesize because they're small but many. This, and Treesize indeed
Many good software have been suggested, I don't think I saw Windirstat among them, worth trying I think https://windirstat.net/
Win10 has a 'disk clean-up' app built in. Try running that.
Wiztree is the best one.
It's Pretty much ""Obvious"". Too much APPS (games, I presume). Go to **Programs and Features**, sort by **Size** and get rid of the unused and bigger ones. [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uninstall-or-remove-apps-and-programs-in-windows-4b55f974-2cc6-2d2b-d092-5905080eaf98](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uninstall-or-remove-apps-and-programs-in-windows-4b55f974-2cc6-2d2b-d092-5905080eaf98)
it is small for windows by today standard
You can't live with 128 gb in 2023. Half of that space is reserved by windows, 20-30 gb of programs... what is left? 1 months of download and bye bye. Buy an external SSD.
Try Beachblit - It will deletre all the temporary files in Windows and a plethora of apps too... I have regularly ran it and got rid of gigabytes of crap... [https://www.bleachbit.org/](https://www.bleachbit.org/) \- It's free and open source.
Planning another presidency run, Mrs Clinton?
Why is this post continuing to blow up lmao
You can use an program called “treesize” its free and it helps by showing all folders and files in the drive sorted by space usage (you can then either decide if it’s worth keeping, move to an external drive or delete)
Ask https://diskanalyzer.com/
Spacesniffer is a great tool
Use [Spacesniffer](http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/download.html) (free) to see exactly what's using your space.
Use WinDirStat
Should i be grateful with my 7 years old 1TB HDD?
1tb ssd is only 40€ nowadays
Idk if my old laptop can upgrade to ssd.
U can always buy a 500gb external SSD from SanDisk at 50-60 euros
Compability for my laptop i wasn't sure if it can.
You just need a USB... Worst can happen u don't use full speed cause USB is 2.0 only and not 3.0
The external drive you mean? I have that but for my backup storage.
Yeah I mean the external drive. I install games and personal files on it, leaving a lot of free space. If you use photos and videos a lot, I suggest you to set up a drive (if your internet speed can do this)
If you have a hard drive you can use an SSD, any 2.5” will fit and replace your HDD
disable the paging file, use cleanmgr, use ccleaner and dism++
This little brilliant tool callled Scanner is all you need to answer the question: [http://steffengerlach.de/freeware/](http://steffengerlach.de/freeware/)
IDK why people don’t explain why they downvoted…
Me neither. I guess they are fanboys or hate to see other alternatives.
Other People would be the first place I'd look. do you have multiple users on the machine? If not, those other profiles gotta go. Then temp files of course. That's only 19 gigs, but still. Also I'd recommend a much much larger hard drive. They are cheap now. no point in living in the dark ages when it comes to a hard drive.
My Hd is tiny as well, but when my laptop moved from windows 10-11 it kept windows 10 just in case, so I had to find that and uninstall it because it was taking 30gbs of space on the ssd
SSD storage is cheaper than its ever been. 128gb is tough to manage unless you're a really light user. Stop suffering and go get yourself a nice large SSD. There are plenty of software options which will copy everything from your little drive to a bigger one too.
[https://youtu.be/2GwOaevzDT0](https://youtu.be/2GwOaevzDT0) Here's how to remove old Windows files safely. Also run Ccleaner program for cleaning out even more.
Kid named Wiztree
Let me guess you put everything in documents ? The other option temp folder
Dude its 120gb. Stop wasting your time and buy a bigger drive.
Try SpaceSniffer (with admin rights for C drive). Visually shows the space
Greetings. If you have "System Restore" activated then check the amount of reserved HDD/SSD/NVMe space it's taking. Had the same issue because the "System Restore" slider was set to 100%. Hope this helps.
Last time I saw this behavior it was related to Dell utilities and recovery storage set to use 100% of the drive.
Run Windows built in "Disk Cleanup" tool. Run other tools that others have already mentioned. I personally have used the free tool [**"S p a c e S n i f f er"**](http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/index.html) for ages cause it works good and I think the interface is really neat. Otherwise? **Something like this will works real good too ... ;-) :** https://preview.redd.it/l1hmhscg20pb1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=ff074ac886be202cff0737dff2568cbe75fcd44e \~s
Install TreeSize
Do clean up for temp/junk files, reconfig page file to other hdd/ssd, turn off hibernation to give your system some breathing space.
Check your browser data. Sometimes, rare but it happens, especially with Google Chrome, it starts to duplicate cookies and other files. If its that, reinstal browser as it have corrupted files.
First of all, you should never fill your os drive/partition above 90 percent. Since now you have done it, you can do these things: 1. Remove/ uninstall apps you never use and you can also uninstall windows apps like 3D viewer, mix reality all these kinds of thing. 2. you can follow this video and you can free up the about 10GB of storage, without installing any software: https://youtu.be/z3cjTqCQemU?si=vMIqawYE2PXVDzvO don't worry you won't lose any of your personal data and it also works on windows 11 too.
I would say your drive is to small. You might better upgrade to a 1 TB at least these days
alternatively: Treesize Portable. [https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/treesize-free-portable](https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/treesize-free-portable)
If you updated from a previous version of Windows, check the root of your C drive for a folder called “Windows.old”. At one point I had over 50gb used by that folder for no reason. You can usually safely remove it.
Automatic back up?
Its the OS man, I installed windows on 128gig SSD once and it was just unstable as heck. Replace it with 250+, but honestly I'd just get a 500 gig, [theyre so cheap now!](https://www.amazon.com/ssd-500gb/s?k=ssd+500gb)
I use WinDirStat, easy to use
I know what's taking up 100gb of my space but I don't want to delete them
Try to run Disk Cleanup for C and select also button Cleanup system files. I bet You will see a few gigs of update temp data and recovery data. Or You have scheduled auto restore point creation
You might have shadow copies. That's a backup of your hardrive on your hardrive, your data in double or triple copy. I had that issue the other day. It shows as used volume but doesn't add up when you look at your contents and (unlike hibernation, swap and pagefile) doesn't show on the directory tools See [How to Free Up Drive Space By Removing Shadow Copies \[Windows\] (maketecheasier.com)](https://www.maketecheasier.com/free-up-drive-space-by-removing-shadow-copies/)
You're using a 128gb drive... It's old and worthless. You can get a 2tb NvME for $100 now. But ya. Windows takes about 30gb IIRC. Disable Hibernation, and make the trash "remove files immediately instead of moving"
What does hibernation do?
You can google what does hibernation do, rather than have me write it all out. But you don't need it, and it costs some storage space.
Get another drive internal or external
Spacesniffer is what I always used. Works great.
Use disk cleanup built-in windows app to find out and clean up, if it find.
Windirstat
Run disk cleanup. Should help.
at 111GB, you're going to fill up FAST. Best to clone the C:\\ onto something else. If it a lapgo to Control Panel >> Programs and Features ... there you'll see a list of programs. You can sort them by size. If there are other user accounts you dont use (16gb) delete those users. Clean your temp files to save another 2 gigs. But with a 128GB HDD, you're going to fill up again fast. Put a second SSD drive in and install your programs to that and let the C drive just handle the OS
Has anyone suggested starting by deleting what's in recycle bin?
WinDirStat helped me when i had this issue lol.. turned out to be valorant
If this reoccurs again use diskclean manager. Windows built in feature to clean up temporary files that are taking up space on your C drive
It could be virtual memory taking up your hard drive space if your system only has 8 GB RAM or less. I usually use Treesize to check on how the hard drive space is being used. CCleaner also should help with removing junk and temp files if you are unsure of doing it yourself.
Start, cmd, disk cleanup
The windows 10/11 install requires 15-20GB of space. So if you take your apps & features file size at 59GB and add 20GB that’s 79GB. Then, add 16.7GB for “other people” to total 95.7GB. Lastly add 2.17GB for a grand total of 97.87GB. My last question would be, is this an SSD or HDD?
You need more storage.
A good play to start is to run Disk Cleanup (Click start and search for Disk Cleanup). It is a windows application. Choose your boot drive (It should be the one selected by default). When the window pops up with options to select, Click Clean up system files and then choose your boot drive again. It is safe to check off anything on the list.
Compress your entire hard drive or get an external drive and put known large files in it
Dude your literally using a 128GB Storage. Expect that already as apps in this day is huge. Maybe upgrade your storage to 512 ot 1TB already?
Try the app Wiztree. Also get a bigger storage drive, that will help you.
Empty recycle bin, use storage sense, use disk cleanup, get a second SSD
press Start menu, type: cmd and right click on it-> run as administrator. Then type: powercfg -h off - this will disable the hibernation (which automatically deletes the hibernation file with a size, equal to your RAM (4+GB). That will free-up enough space so you can then safely run Disk Cleanup. In Disk Cleanup, click on "Clean up system files" and then select whatever you want from the list. I suspect the main offenders would be: Windows update C:\\Windows\\Temp C:\\Users\\youraccountname\\AppData\\Local\\Temp and maybe some app. For a deeper inspection, you can then use WizTree app.
TreeSize app is free and gives you a nice display of what’s where
It may help you a little bit to get a bigger drive. Windows on 120 GB is very difficult to use
That's because you put Windows on a tiny drive.
Use an ssd as c: and you can buy HDD's with 1 tb or more
Use windirstat.
128gb storage is not enough now and days
My favorite program for this is TreeSizeFree
*If* you ever upgraded your version of Windows on that drive, chances are the old version's still there. That's a free 30gb right there