F
$UFKLYH ROG ¾OHV
Anotherwaytosavespaceistomovefoldersandfilesontoa secondary
storagedrive,suchasa USBdrive.If youdon’thavethisluxury,thensave
spacebyzippinguptheserarelyusedfilesandfoldersinstead.Right-click
theitem(s)inquestionandchoose‘Sendto>Compressed(zipped)folder’,
thenwaitforit tobecombinedintoa singlezipfile.Right-clickthisand
chooseProperties,thencompareitssizetotheoriginalfile.If there’sa
significantsaving,deletetheoriginalfileorfolder,thenrepeattokeep
freeingupmorespace.58 |^ |^ December 2019
reeing up space on
your PC has never
been easier thanks
to Windows 10’s new
Storage Sense feature,
which is designed to
render third-party apps like CCleaner
redundant. Your first job, therefore,
is to employ its services to free up
additional space on your drive. Navigate
to Settings > System > Storage and click
the ‘Configure Storage Sense or run it
now’ link. Flick the Storage Sense switch
on and choose when to run the disk-
cleaning tool: by default, it’ll run when
you run low on disk space, but if you
want to take a more pre-emptive
approach you can run it monthly,
weekly or even daily.
Scroll down to configure more options- for example, removing temporary files,
emptying files from the Recycle Bin after
a set period and periodically cleaning
out the Downloads folder. You can also
configure OneDrive’s on-demand
feature so downloaded content reverts
to online-only if unopened for 1, 14, 30
or 60 days. Desperate for more space?
Click ‘Clean now’ to perform a one-
time cleanup.Files on-demand
If you’re a Microsoft OneDrive user,
then chances are you’re already taking
advantage of a relatively recent feature
known as “on-demand”. Instead of
keeping everything physically stored on
your computer, a series of shortcuts are
created instead pointing to the online
files. These take up a fraction of the
space, while ensuring your files are
always accessible (so long as you’reconnected to the internet). Simply open
a file in the normal way and it’ll be
downloaded to your PC, kept there
indefinitely or – if configured as outlined
above – until the file hasn’t been
touched for a set period, at which point
it’ll revert to online-only to free up
space on your PC until you next open it.
Verify the feature is on by right-
clicking the OneDrive icon and choosing
Settings > Settings tab, then ensuring
‘Save space and download files as you
use them’ is ticked.Track down duplicates
It’s amazing how easily we generate
copies of files – or near-duplicates in the
case of digital photos, with multiple
attempts to get the perfect shot all
somehow being left on your drive at the
end of the process. In the past we’ve
looked to Duplicate Cleaner Free (www.
digitalvolcano.co.uk/duplicatecleaner.
html) and AntiDupl (https://ermig1979.
github.io/AntiDupl/english/) to cover
these bases for free. The Pro version of
Duplicate Cleaner – £23.95 – can also
hunt out similar files, but before
investing why not give AntiTwin (www.
joerg-rosenthal.com/en/antitwin/) a go?
Despite not having been updated
since 2010, this no-frills tool works
perfectly in Windows 10 and can cover
all your bases as the step-by-step guide
reveals. Your selections are clearly
marked before you commit to any
deleting of files, and when you click to
delete you’re given the option of
moving them to a folder on the same
drive for transferring elsewhere, sending
them to the Recycle bin or deleting
them directly.
Look too for the option to replace the
file with a symbolic link to the file you’ve
kept – this means a program referencing
the file you’ve deleted will be redirected
to the remaining file instead, ensuring it
continues to work correctly.Clean up your PC
Before deciding if you need to inves t in more s torage,
make sure you’re not wasting the space you already have
Provide yourself with a safety net before you weed
out unwanted duplicates in AntiTwin – just in case.IMAGES: Microsoft, Jeorg RosenthalIf configured correctly, Storage Sense will do much
to tidy up after you and keep drive space free.