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Disk Cleanup in Windows 11: How to Access it & Free up Space

Clean up your computer and remove applications you no longer use to boost its performance

5 min. read

Updated onAugust 12, 2024

updated onAugust 12, 2024

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Resolve multiple Windows PC issues and speed up your PC effortlessly with specialized software.

It’s essential to run Disk Cleanup in Windows 11 occasionally to get rid of that data and free up some space on your drive. In this piece, we’ll show you a few different ways to perform a disk cleanup on your PC:

How to do Disk Cleanup on Windows 11?

How to do Disk Cleanup on Windows 11?

1. Via Drive Properties

  1. Press theWindowskey +Ekeys combination to startFile Manager.

  2. Click onThis PC.

  3. Now right-click theC:drive and selectPropertiesfrom the drop-down menu.

  4. In theGeneraltab, click onDisk Cleanupto start the app.

  5. Select the data you want to delete by clicking the corresponding boxes, then onOK.

For a complete cleaning of your computer, you should use the Disk Cleanup feature. The easiest way to access it is via Drive Properties, a built-in menu on your PC. From there, you can select which files you want to keep and which to delete.

2. Clean up the disk using Run

You can also use the following command to clean up your disk, but it will erase less data than with the command provided in our steps above:cleanmgr /LOWDISK

If you want to choose which files to clean, use this Disk Cleanup command, and then pressEnterto run it:cleanmgr /sageset:1

It will start the Disk Cleanup utility with a minimum of options checked, but you can click the boxes you want from the menu.

3. Enable Storage Sense

Storage Sense is the automatic cleaning option that you can also find in Windows 10. If you don’t set it up, it will only be triggered when your disk space is low.

However, if you follow the steps above, you canenable Storage Sense in Windows 11and configure it to start within desired time intervals so that you don’t need to do that manually again.

4. Remove temporary files

If you’re not ready to perform a bulk delete action using the Disk Cleanup tool in Windows 11, you can delete the junk files from theTempfolder on your PC.

Is it good to run Disk Cleanup?

Is it good to run Disk Cleanup?

Deleting most of the file categories that appear in Disk Cleanup is perfectly safe. But, it’s recommended that you don’t delete theWindows ESD installation filesif the option shows up since these are critical to reset the OS.

Also, you may look through the other categories to identify if any sound files are selected, though deleting them should not harm. You might only miss the ability to revert to the previous version, and you can always do that using theMicrosoft Update Catalog.

How to increase the drive space on your PC?

You might be in a situation where you run out of space on your drive, but you have already deleted all unnecessary files, folders, or programs.

However, you have a couple of options that you can use to increase the available space.

1. Extend your system partition

You can delete an existing non-system partition to achieve your goal if you have more partitions on your drive.

2. Upgrade your PC or buy an external drive

Eventually, if nothing else works and you need more space, you’re only left with the option to install a new internal or external drive on your PC.

We have an excellent list, including thebest external SSD drives with USB-C connectionsthat will solve the space problem and are faster than HDDs.

Drive space can be problematic if you’re trying to install or run more demanding apps, and Disk Cleanup is the first and most convenient option to free up some valuable space.

However, besides running the Disk Cleanup app, you can use a morecomprehensive storage analyzer like WinDirStator manuallyuninstall the appsyou no longer use.

Summary

We hope our guide helped you use the Disk Cleanup app and provided information on how to free up space on your computer or upgrade your storage. You might considerwiping out the free spaceto prevent deleted data from being recovered.

This is one of the best tools toclean the C drive without formatting, so it’s important to know how to use it properly.

Also, check out thebest deep clean hard drive softwarethat will assist you in optimizing the drive space.

Disk Cleanup is one of the best ways todelete temporary files on Windows 11, but there are other built-in tools that can help.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave them in the comments section below.

More about the topics:Windows 11

Claudiu Andone

Windows Toubleshooting Expert

Oldtimer in the tech and science press, Claudiu is focused on whatever comes new from Microsoft.

His abrupt interest in computers started when he saw the first Home Computer as a kid. However, his passion for Windows and everything related became obvious when he became a sys admin in a computer science high school.

With 14 years of experience in writing about everything there is to know about science and technology, Claudiu also likes rock music, chilling in the garden, and Star Wars. May the force be with you, always!

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Claudiu Andone

Windows Toubleshooting Expert

Oldtimer in the tech and science press, with 14 years of experience in writing on everything there is to know about science, technology, and Microsoft