Welcome back, in today’s video I’ll be showing you a number of different ways to
free up drive space on your Windows 11 PC or laptop.
Whether your drive is near capacity or you want to install a large game file, hopefully
the methods in this video will give you the extra hard drive or SSD capacity you need.
You don’t necessarily need to follow all of the methods, so feel free to skip any that
you don’t think will work or those that you have tried already.
Before we go into the first method, I do need to say that most of these methods will mean
uninstalling certain apps and deleting folders, so when we get to that, just make sure you
double check, so you avoid removing anything you want to keep!
We’ll have ten methods to try in total so we should be able to free up quite a lot of
space.
Remember to leave a like and feel free to subscribe if the video helps, let’s get
into the methods.
The first method to free up space in Windows 11 is nice and simple but should be quite
effective.
It is to empty the recycle bin.
If you go to your desktop, you should be able to find the recycle bin shortcut.
Double click on it to open it and before you do anything, just take a look through to see
if there’s anything you want to keep.
If you find something that you want to keep, then all you need to do is right click on
it and select restore.
It will then go back to the place it was deleted.
If you’re happy to permanently delete the rest of the contents of the recycle bin, then
click in some space and then choose empty recycle bin.
Finally, click yes to permanently delete the contents.
Let’s move onto method two.
The second method is to check and delete any files we don’t need in our downloads folder.
Anything you’ve downloaded from the internet will be in here if you haven’t deleted them
already and if you download things often, it’s likely that this folder could be filling
up with things you can remove, such as images and program installers.
You can get to your downloads folder by clicking on file explorer and then choosing it from
the quick access menu.
If you can’t find it from here, you can always search for the folder in the search
bar to get there.
Take a look in the folder and simply delete anything you don’t want by right clicking
and selecting delete.
Just make sure you don’t delete anything you want to keep.
Up next, we’re going to make sure that storage sense is turned on and set up correctly to
help us free up more space on Windows 11 automatically.
To check that storage sense is turned on, first go to the main settings page.
You can get there by searching for it in the search bar.
In the settings, click on system from the options on the left side although you should
be in here by default.
In the system settings, click on storage from the list.
Now click on storage sense to turn it on and also edit the settings.
You can customize the settings in here to your preference but please take care as some
of the settings might delete files automatically.
For example, files that have been in your recycle bin or downloads folder for more than
thirty days.
Once you’re happy with the settings and you understand them, head back one page to
the storage settings for the next method.
The fourth method is to clear temporary files on your PC.
In the storage settings, below storage sense, there should be an option called something
like clean-up recommendations.
Click once on this and you will be able to delete temporary files and folders that Windows
doesn’t think you need.
I would recommend checking though before deleting anything but this method could help free up
quite a lot of space.
The fifth method is to run the disk clean-up tool.
This might help us delete even more unrequired temporary folders, but this is similar to
the last method so it might not make a lot of difference, but it’s worth a try.
Search disk clean up in the search bar and click on it to open it.
In the new window, you will notice all of the categories that we can choose to delete
as well as the amount of space it will free up.
All you need to do is go down the list and check the boxes for the ones you are happy
to delete.
Please be careful though and double check that you don’t need to keep any of these
files and folders as they will be permanently deleted.
When you’re happy with the selection, click on OK and then delete files to run the tool.
Let’s move on to the next method.
Next, we’re going to uninstall any programs or files that we no longer use or need.
Apps and programs can take up quite a lot of space on your PC so its worth removing
those you don’t use.
You can uninstall a program by going to settings, then apps, then apps and features and then
finding the app you want to uninstall and then finally click on the three dots icon
and choose uninstall.
When you delete or uninstall any apps, programs or any files whilst following this video,
you might need to empty your recycle bin again to free up even more space, so do this again
at the end of the video, after I’ve shown you all of the methods.
The next method to free up space on your computer is to clear your browser cache.
The way to do this will differ depending on the browser you use, so if you are unsure
on the exact method for your browser then you can search online for the correct way
to do it.
However, most browsers should be similar, and I’ll show you how to do it on Chrome
for this example.
In Chrome, click on the three dots icon in the top right to bring up the menu, go down
the list and select history, then open your browser history.
You can also use the keyboard shortcut Control and H to get here too.
Find where it says clear browsing data on the left side and click on that.
Now check the box that says cached images and files and change the time range to all
time at the top.
Finally select clear data to clear however much space it was taking up.
Let’s move on to the next method.
The eighth method to free up space is another simple one.
It is to transfer some of the larger files, especially images and videos to an external
drive or USB stick.
If you don’t have any of these then you can move on to the next methods but if you
do then to transfer files, all you need to do is connect your device and then find it
within the file explorer.
You can then copy and paste files from your PC to the external drive and you can then
delete them on your PC to free up space.
Of course, you could also purchase another drive for your PC too to make more space.
The next two solutions are quite extreme in terms of what you have to do to free up space,
so I would only recommend doing them if you are desperate for extra space but it’s up
to you if you think it’s worth it.
Take a look any way.
The ninth method is to change the amount of space reserved for system restore points.
System restore can be used to revert to a certain point in time if you run into problems.
If you have never had to do this, it might be worth following this method.
To reduce the amount of space reserved for system restore, first search “restore”
in the search bar and click on create a restore point.
When the new window opens, click on where it says configure and then find the slider
to adjust the amount of reserved drive space for restore points.
You don’t need to decrease it all the way, but the less space you leave it, the fewer
restore points there will be should you run into any problems in the future.
Click on OK or apply, once you’re happy with the settings.
The final method to free up space is another one that is up to you if you think it’s
worth it.
It is disabling hibernate on your PC.
Hibernate reserves space on your drive to use as memory if you shut down your PC and
want to return to how it was when you start it up again.
Turning it off will release this reserved space for you to use if you desperately need
it.
You can always turn on hibernate again in the future, and I’ll tell you how to do
that too.
To turn off hibernate, first search command prompt in the search bar but before you open
it, right click on it and select run as administrator.
When it opens, the text you need to enter is “p” “o” “w” “e” “r”
“c” “f” “g” space “forward slash” “h” “I” “b” “e” “r” “n”
“a” “t” “e” space “o” “f” “f”.
I’ll also include this code in the description if you want to copy and paste it in.
Now press the enter key to run the command.
You now won’t be able to hibernate your PC, but if you never did that any way, you
shouldn’t notice a difference, apart from the extra drive space.
To turn it back on in the future, the command to enter is “powercfg /hibernate on”.
It’s the same as the first command but with on instead of off.
Again, I’ll include this in the description if you want to copy and paste it.
And so those are my methods to free up drive space on a Windows 11 PC or laptop.
Click the card on screen now to watch a video of mine showing you ten easy ways you can
speed up your Windows PC.
We’ve already done one of those methods by freeing up space, so you should be able
to zoom through that video for extra performance.
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the end of the video.
If you have any questions, then let me know in the comments below and if you did find
today’s video helpful remember to leave a like and feel free to subscribe for more
tips in the future.
Be sure to stick around to see some of my other videos that you might be interested
in.
Thanks so much for watching and I will see you in another video!