Hello everybody! Watch this video to find out how to clean the disk from junk files
with Windows 11 integrated utilities.
When your computer runs out of free disk space, it affects its performance almost inevitably.
The less free space your hard disk has, the higher are the chances that some programs
will take more time to start, and others will even refuse to open. As a rule, most computers
tend to have their Windows installed onto a solid-state drive of a moderate capacity,
and sooner or later, its free disk space begins to dwindle to dangerous limits. There are
lots of third-party tools created to clean your hard disks from unnecessary files, but
the integrated utilities can still handle this task pretty well, too. Just like the
previous versions of this operating system, Windows 11 features a bunch of integrated
disk cleaning utilities - and in this video I’m going to show you how to use them.
Clean junk files from Windows 11 settings You can access the first method of disk cleaning
in Windows 11 through the Settings app. To open it, click on Start - Settings - Storage.
In the window that opens, look to the right to see the information on the amount of free
and used space. Below, you will see the list of things that use your disk space.
When expand a category by clicking on it - for example, “Temporary files” - you will
see what exactly is included into this category and how much disk space it occupies. In this
category, files can be removed. To view the complete list of all categories,
click on “Show more categories.” In the “Storage management” section below,
you can run disk cleanup operations. The “Storage Sense” feature lets you configure
automatic disk cleanup, remove temporary files and so on. When you open this section, you
can schedule when files are deleted from certain folders. At the bottom of the page, you can
find the button “Run Storage Sense now.” In the previous window, you can also check
“Cleanup recommendations.” It contains information about files in your Downloads
folder, Recycle Bin folder, temporary files, large or unused files, unused apps and files
that you have synced to the cloud services. Select the files that need to be removed and
click the “Clean up” button below.
The features listed in Windows 11 Storage settings are pretty basic but really useful,
especially for beginners. In addition, there is a considerable advantage
in comparison with third-party disk cleanup software: there is no way that you could harm
the operating system, as it is absolutely safe to delete the files suggested for removal.
The only possible exception is the contents of your Downloads folder - if you keep something
important there.
Remove unnecessary files with Disk Cleanup utility
Along with the new storage cleaning options, Windows 11 also inherited the integrated disk
cleanup utility from its previous versions. This tool will help you clean much more junk
files than you would remove with the Storage features in the Settings.
Open the Start menu and search for Disk Cleanup. In the window that opens, select the drive
to be cleaned and click OK. In the next window, you will see the list of files that can be
removed: usually, they don’t take up much space. But if you click on the option below
- “Clean up system files” - the Drive Selection window appears again, and another
round of scanning begins: this time, the list of files and the amount of data that can be
removed will be bigger. Check the boxes for file types you want to
clean and click OK. Wait until the cleanup process is complete.
In the tab “More Options” you will be able to free up more disk space by removing
unnecessary programs or system restore points (except for the latest one) - and do it by
clicking on the Cleanup button next to the corresponding category.
The Disk Cleanup feature is similar to Storage Sense, and it is as safe as that; it never
suggests to delete files that are required for normal work of your operating system.
Also, you can run this utility in an advanced mode which allows to run a deeper cleanup
and remove even more files. To start this mode, open the Run window and
type the following command: %systemroot%\system32\cmd.exe /c cleanmgr
/sageset:65535 & cleanmgr /sagerun:65535 If this method doesn’t work, run this command
from the Command Prompt as administrator. As you can see, now the file cleanup list
is longer. The only disadvantage is that you can’t
see how much space is taken up by files in every category. Also, such items as “Device
Driver Packages” and “Delivery Optimization Files” are missing, although they are displayed
when you run cleanup in the basic mode.
Remove old drivers manually If your hard disk is very low on space, you
can try to free up a few gigabytes manually - by cleaning the folder “FileRepository”
where device drivers are stored. Integrated utilities don’t remove old or unused drivers
from this folder. If the total folder size is more than 2 GB, it seems a good idea to
delete some drivers. Here is the path to the folder:
C:\ Windows\ System32\ DriverStore\ FileRepository It contains copies of device driver packages
that are ready for installation. When the operating system updates device drivers
automatically, or when you do it manually, older versions of drivers are kept in this
folder just in case you want to roll back if new drivers cause any issues. That is convenient
- but it also takes up your disk space. In theory, you can remove everything from
FileRepository folder, but in reality, this may cause problems and it’s not so safe
as you may think. To clean up some drivers without regretting
that, you have to understand what things can be removed safely.
For starters, let’s list the drivers that are stored in this folder.
Launch the Command prompt as Administrator and type the following command:
pnputil.exe /e > c:\drivers.txt This command will create a file on Disk C
with a list of driver packages. After you check that list, you can remove
unnecessary drivers with this command: pnputil.exe /d oemNN.inf
where NN is the number of the driver file as listed in the document drivers.txt
When you try to remove a driver which is currently in use, you will see this message saying that
the delete operation has failed. So the best approach is to start your cleanup
operations by removing old graphics drivers, and old drivers for your peripheral devices.
If necessary, you can always check the current driver version in the Device Manager window
by clicking “Properties” and then “Driver.”
That is all for now! Hopefully, this video was useful. Remember to click the Like button
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miss new videos. Leave comments to ask questions. Thank you for watching. Good luck.