PC World - USA (2020-09)

SEPTEMBER 2020 PCWorld 95

even selecting the Show More Categories link
at the bottom simply opens up folders like
Documents and Music that you may want to
leave intact.

HOW TO USE STORAGE
SENSE, YOUR DIGITAL
HOUSEKEEPER
Remember how Temporary Files was such an
ideal location to find files that you can get rid of?
Why not let Windows do it for you? That’s the
reasoning behind Storage Sense, the toggle at
the top of the Settings’ Storage page. Toggle it
on, and it will automatically
delete files in the Recycle Bin
after 30 days, and eliminate other
temporary files, too.
Do yourself a favor, though,
and open up the Storage Sense
configuration/options page,
which has been tweaked since

the feature debuted early in the

Windows lifecycle. Our

previous Storage Sense how-to

(go.pcworld.com/stor) is still in

effect, but Windows has added

controls to optionally delete

files in your Downloads folder. I

never want that to happen, and

you might not want that to

happen, either.

Note that Storage Sense

triggers only when you’re low

on disk space. If you’re

downloading a massive game like Flight

Simulator, it might trip Windows up—there’s

too much empty space to run Storage Sense,

but not enough to download the game. You

can always go way down to the bottom of the

Storage Sense configuration page and kick off

Storage Sense manually.

WINDIRSTAT: THE TOOL

FOR STEAM GAMERS

The one key limitation I’ve noticed about

Windows’ own Storage settings is that they

have blinders on where other app stores are

In File Explorer, files stored on your local hard drive (on your PC) are
shown with a green checkmark next to them. OneDrive files stored
only in the cloud have a cloud icon. What Windows can do is delete
local files that are already backed up in the cloud, saving space.