For Windows to run smoothly, your system needs to have a buffer of 10-15 GB of free space. In this way, if we do not want Windows to start showing erratic behavior, blue screens appearing or taking longer than usual to open or run applications, we must regularly free up space occupied by Windows that is unnecessary.
The best method to free up space in Windows is to eliminate all the content that Windows does not need to work, space made up of files and folders that have been created to cover a specific need of the system and that have ceased to be useful.
Space cleanup
One of the tools that we should get used to using regularly in Windows is the Disk Cleanup application. This native Windows application analyzes the computer and shows us all the files that can be deleted without affecting the integrity of the system. With this application, we can free several GB of space by deleting the files of the updates, temporary files, the thumbnails of the images and much more.
If we want to do a deep cleaning on the computer, we must click on Clean system files and check the Windows update cleanup box to delete the downloaded and installed Windows updates that continue to occupy disk space despite not being useful on the computer but they are kept as a precautionary measure, in case they are needed.
Empty the recycle bin
In the recycle bin we will only find files that, as a user, we do not want to see on our computer again. All these files are kept on the computer for 30 days according to the native Windows configuration options. After that period of time, they are completely removed from our computer. If we don’t want the files to end up directly in the recycle bin and to be completely removed from our computer once we delete them, we must press the Shift key while dragging it to the bin. We can also modify the configuration options of the trash so that, instead of storing the files that we delete, they are deleted directly from our computer.
Check the Downloads folder
If we usually download photos, videos, programs or whatever, it is likely that the space in the Downloads folder is taking up unnecessary disk space. It is advisable to periodically review this folder to classify the content that we want to keep and that we can do without once it is no longer useful. All the files found in this folder, as well as those in the recycle bin, can be deleted without any problem, since they are not part of the system.
Delete hibernate file
The hibernation mode of Windows allows you to temporarily freeze the operation of the computer to pick up the activity exactly where we left it, with the same applications open and showing the content on which we were working. In order for Windows to keep this information, the computer needs several GBs of space, a very valuable space that we can free up if we don’t use this function.
Newer versions of Windows 10 and in Windows 11, Microsoft has replaced Hibernation with Fast Startup. If we have fast startup activated in Windows (within the power options), when we turn on the computer again, it will show all the applications that we had open when we closed it , in the same way that Hibernation mode would. To remove the hibernation file, we just have to disable this function through the following command:
powercfg /hibernate off
Delete the Windows .old folder
If we have upgraded from Windows 7 or Windows 8.x to Windows 10, without doing a clean install, Windows 10 will keep a copy of the previous version of Windows with the name Windows.old. In this folder is the version of Windows that we had installed on the computer before installing Windows 10, occupying unnecessary space on the disk and that is absolutely useless, since Microsoft eliminated the possibility of going back to the previous version of this system. operational after installing Windows 10.