Windows Help & Advice - UK (2019-12)

Windows 1

Free up some spac

December 2019 | |^57

1
Viewa summary
Youcanchoosetomonitorall
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MakeyourchoiceandclickOK.Wait
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you’llseea three-panedwindow.The
bottomprovidesa colour-coded‘map’
ofyourharddriveaccordingtohowit’s
beingused.

2

Investigatein detail

Clickanitemonthemapand

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in thetopleftpane,whichshowsa

traditionalfolderview.Right-click

andchoose‘Zoomin’toviewa map

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driveorthefoldercontainingyour

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you think is safe to remove, select it

and open the Clean Up menu. You

can delete it directly from here or

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File Explorer window pointing to the

parent folder, allowing you to examine

it more closely.

followed by Yes at the warning and
finally OK. Bingo, no more warnings
for that drive.

Monitor disk usage
It’s all very well knowing that your
free space is disappearing, but what’s
taking up all that room? Your first stop
on the quest for knowledge should
be Windows’ own tools: navigate to
Settings > System > Storage and after a
short while, Windows will reveal what
types of file are taking up the most
space on your system drive. You’ll see
categories for Apps & features and
Temporary files, and you can click ‘Show
more categories’ for a more precise
listing of usage by categories as varied
as Mail, Documents and Videos.
Click an entry in the list and you’ll be
abletonotjustviewmoredetail,but
takeremedialaction:forexample,if
yourTempfilesaregobblinggigabytes
ofspace,clickthistomanuallyclean
themup– note,theTempsettingnow
coversfilesstoredinyourDownloads

folder,althoughtheyareexcludedby
default.Asyou’llseeoverthepage,you
shouldmakeuseofWindows’new
StorageSensefeaturetomanagethis
automatically,removingtemporaryfiles
asrequiredtopreventyourPCfrom
runninglowondiskspace.
AlthoughWindowsprovidesan
‘Other’viewtocoverlargefolders,it’s
notcapableofeasilyhighlightingthose
individualfilesandfoldersthatare
takingupthemostspaceonyourhard
drive.Tosearchfortheserequiresa
third-partytree-mappingtool.Tree-

mappingtoolsprovidea visual

representationofeachfileonyourhard

drive(s)intheformofblocks,withthe

sizeofeachblockcorrespondingtothe

sizeofthefileinquestion.

OnesuchfreetoolisWinDirStat

(https://windirstat.net/),whichyoucan

downloadandinstallfromitsparent

websiteoraddtoyourPortableApps

toolkitforrunningon-demand.Toaddit

toyourtoolkit,openthePortableApps

platformandclick‘Apps>GetMore

Apps>ByCategory’– you’llfind

WinDirStatintheUtilitiessection.Once

installed,right-clicktheprogram

shortcutandchoose‘Runas

administrator’toallowit tocheck

yourentiredrive,thencheckoutthe

step-by-stepguidetofindouthow

touseit tobothtargetand– if

necessary– deleteindividualfiles.

Checkouttheboxforanalternative

toolshouldWinDirStat’ssomewhat

garishuserinterfaceputyouoff.

Onceyou’vedeterminedwhereall

yourdrivespacehasgone,youcan

moveontodecidehowtotacklethe

problem.Turnthepagetofindouthow.

Monitor disk space with WinDirStat

“You should make use of Windows’ new Storage Sense

feature to remove temporary files automatically to

prevent your PC from running low on disk space”

Quickly reclaim space

by examining what temporary

files are on your system and

choosing which to remove.