[Tip] Automatically Free Up Disk Space in Windows 10

Many people regularly face low disk space problem in Windows. They download software and other kind of files from various websites which are stored forever in the Downloads folder. Many times lots of temporary files are created and stored in TEMP folder by several 3rd party software programs and Store apps. Apart from it, Windows also creates and stores many temporary files in C: drive to perform various system tasks.

Sometimes people delete unwanted files/folders from hard disk but they forget to empty the Recycle Bin and the unused data is kept in the Recycle Bin and continues wasting hard disk space.

Regularly downloading files from Internet, storing temporary files in C: drive and keeping unwanted files in Recycle Bin can cause the low disk space problem and then we need to manually free up disk space by deleting temporary files and unwanted stuff.

You can take help of following tutorial to manually get free disk space in Windows:

[Tip] How to Get Extra Free Disk Space in Windows?

Wouldn’t it be great if Windows can automatically free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files?

If you are using Windows 10 operating system, it’s possible. Windows 10 comes with a built-in feature called “Storage Sense” which automatically runs when you are on low disk space and cleans temporary and unused files.

It’s a useful feature for people who frequently face low disk space problem in Windows. If you are using Windows 10 and want to enable this feature, following steps will help you:

1. Open Start Menu and click on Settings option. It’ll open Settings app. Alternatively, you can direct open Settings app using WIN+I hotkey.

2. Now click on “System” icon and in left-side pane, click on “Storage” section.

PS: Alternatively, You can directly launch the “Storage” page using “ms-settings:storagesense” command in RUN dialog box as mentioned here.

3. Now under “Storage Sense” section, set the toggle button to ON.

4. Now click on “Change how we free up space” link given below the toggle button.

5. On next page, you’ll see following 3 options:

• Delete temporary files that my apps aren’t using
• Delete files that have been in the recycle bin for over 30 days
• Delete files in the Downloads folder that haven’t changed in 30 days

You should definitely enable the first option i.e. “Delete temporary files that my apps aren’t using” as it’ll delete temporary files which are always safe to remove.

Second option “Delete files that have been in the recycle bin for over 30 days” can also be enabled if you regularly delete unwanted files/folders but forget to empty Recycle Bin.

The third option “Delete files in the Downloads folder that haven’t changed in 30 days” is important one. Enable it if you move the important downloaded files from Downloads folder to a safe place. If you keep the downloaded files in Downloads folder, don’t enable it.

6. You can manually run the Storage Sense feature and free up disk space by clicking on the “Clean Now” button any time. It’ll immediately free up available disk space.

Activating the “Storage Sense” feature in Windows 10 can help users in fixing low disk space issues and freeing up disk space automatically.

Also Check:

[Tip] How to Free Up Hard Disk Space in Windows 10