How to free disk space using Disk Cleanup

Published: Oct 27, 2024

Last updated: Jan 27, 2025

Introduction

This tutorial is designed to guide you through using Disk Cleanup to free disk space on your Windows-based computer. This tutorial is compatible for Windows 7/8.1/10/11.

Disk Cleanup

Search for Disk Cleanup


Disk Cleanup will scan your computer for temporary and unecessary files that can be deleted


Select Clean up system files


Disk Cleanup will scan your computer again, searching for additional files that can be deleted


Select the More Options tab


Below System Restore and Shadow Copies
Select Clean up...


A prompt will appear asking "Are you sure you want to delete all but the most recent but the most recent restore point?"
Select Delete


Select the Disk Cleanup tab
Select the checkbox next to each item in the list you would like to delete
The amount of disk space you will gain is displayed on screen, in this example we are gaining 12.0 GBs!
Select OK


A prompt will appear asking "Are you sure you want to permanently delete these files?"
Select Delete Files


Disk Cleanup will clean your computer and delete files. Be patient, some times Disk Cleanup can take a while depending how often you clean your computer and how many files are being deleted

Additional notes:

Disk Cleanup has been part of Windows since Windows 98; however, I can't guarantee it'll be functionally the same in every version of Windows.
Sometimes the Downloads folder is an option that can be selected from the list of Files to delete, be careful not to delete Downloads if you store files there! Techtips is not liable for data loss!!

References:

W3Schools
Random post on stack overflow
Mozilla Developer Network documentation. Shoutout to u/morewordsfastera on Reddit.