8 non-standard ways to free up space in Windows

There are several ways to free up space in Windows. Here are a few unusual ones you may not have known about.

There are things in life that are never enough. Time and money are probably the first things that come to mind. In our lives with electronics, storage space can easily take third place. We often have to make room. Windows has a number of special features, but sometimes they are not enough. What can we do then?

There are a number of more or less common operations that you can perform to free up space on your computer. Here is a short list.

Use your own disk cleanup tool

This good old Windows 10 and Windows 11 disk cleanup utility is very useful. It allows you to quickly clean up multiple types of files and data.

Go to Start > Disk Cleanup > Clean up system files. Here you will see a list of data that can be deleted. This tool can help you remove Windows Update files, non-essential Windows Defender files, log files, downloaded program files, temporary internet files, system error files, previous Windows installations, and more.

Most of this data can be safely deleted, with the exception of “Windows ESD installation files”. These files are used to reset the machine to factory configuration. If you delete this data, you will have to go through the external drive to reboot the machine if necessary.

Delete OneDrive Data You Don’t Need

If you’re using Microsoft 365 with the 1TB storage plan, you might have a lot of files on OneDrive as well as on your PC, but you probably don’t use all those files on your PC all the time. In File Explorer > OneDrive, identify the files you don’t need and remove them from your computer.

OneDrive also has a Files On Demand feature. Once enabled, files will only be loaded when they are opened. To turn it on, click the OneDrive icon in the taskbar, then choose Help & Settings > Settings > Save space and download files while using them. OneDrive will no longer store everything locally, but you will still be able to access certain files whenever you want. To do this, right-click on the file or folder and select the Always keep on this device option.

Set up automatic deletion of temporary files and recycle bin

Storage Sense for Windows helps you delete temporary files, but you can automate the whole process by allowing you to regularly empty temporary files and the Recycle Bin in the background.

Go to “Settings”> “System”> “Storage”and enable “Automatically clear user content”. There, select the interval that suits you best in the “Launch Storage Sense”, “every month”or “every week”function.

You can then choose when to remove files from the trash. At the top, make sure the “Clean up temporary files”feature is activated.

Move files, apps and games to another drive

If you can’t free up space on your installation drive, you can move them to another drive. Just drag and drop to Explorer. You can also use the “Move to”function after selecting files and/or folders.

To change the location of an app or game, go to Settings > Apps > Apps & Features and select the app or game you want to move. Then click the “Move”button and use the list to select a drive. Finally, click “Move”.

If you don’t see the “Move”option or it’s greyed out, it means that Windows doesn’t allow you to do this. In this case, you will need to use a third party tool like Steam Mover, which was designed and built for Steam games but works with any application.

Change the default download and install folder to a different drive

There is a Windows setting that allows you to change the default location for downloading new files and installing applications. You can choose another drive, external or not, to save space. Go to Settings > System > Storage > Advanced Storage Options > Find New Content. Select a new location and click Apply.

Disable the hibernation feature

Hibernation is useful for Windows computers that save their current data to the system drive before shutting down. This saves the session state for the next Windows startup. This is a very handy feature, but takes up a lot of memory. If you are not using it, you can disable it.

To do this, click the “Start”button and search for “Command Prompt”. Right click on it and select “Run as administrator”. There, type the command “powercfg /hibernate off”and press Enter. Sleep mode is now disabled. To turn it back on, type “powercfg /hibernate on”.

Upgrading to Windows Compact OS

Windows has a Compact OS feature that reduces the size of the system and applications on disk. This feature was conceived and designed specifically for users with limited storage, but you can use it to save a few gigabytes when you really need it. However, make a full backup first to avoid problems later.

To do this, click the “Start”button and search for “Command Prompt”. Right click on it and select “Run as administrator”. There, type the command “compact.exe /compactOS:always”and press Enter. Follow the instructions and you will save about 2 GB. To return to normal Windows, type “compact.exe /compactOS:never”.

Rebuild search index

The Windows Search database can sometimes grow to enormous sizes and even slow down the entire computer. Try rebuilding it to see if you can save space.

Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Windows Search > Advanced Search Index Options. Click the Advanced button, then under Diagnostics, click Rebuild and OK to confirm.