There are a lot of files and folders on Windows that you don’t want and can get rid of to retrieve space on your PC. However, you might know which file is worth deleting. There are hidden caches, obsolete files which takes up space on your PC.
In this post, we will discuss Windows files and folders that you can delete and why you may want to remove them.
If you don’t want to go through this process manually but still want these unwanted files and folders deleted from your Windows computer, then you must have Advanced System Optimizer to clean up unwanted and obsolete files and retrieve disk space on your Windows.
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Note: These folders can be present in the protected locations, therefore you need to perform the steps carefully.
Also Read: Top computer speed up tool in 2020
Disk Cleanup: Good Method Of Removing Unwanted Windows Folders
Starting with deleting the folders in protected locations, might not be a good way to start, you can always use Disk Cleanup. This will avert you from accidentally deleting important files and folders
To start the process, follow the steps:
Step 1: Go to Start Menu Search and type Disk Cleanup.
Note: Press Windows and R and type cleanmgr.
Step 2: You need to select the drive and press OK.
Step 3: You will get a list of Files to delete, select the files and click OK.
It will start deleting the files and process will be completed in a few minutes.
You can delete Windows upgrade log files, Windows Update Cleanup, Recycle Bin, Language resource files and Temporary files.
You can also go clear up space by going to Settings (press Windows and I key together)
On the Settings page, click System and then from the left pane, navigate and click Storage.
On Storage page, click Free up space now.
How To Free Up Disk Space On Windows...Learn how to free up the disk space on Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7.1. Recycle Bin
You can locate Recycle Bin shortcut on the desktop or you can type Recycle Bin in Search bar to locate. When you delete a file, it goes to Recycle Bin. You can go to Recycle Bin and select all the folders and files & press Delete to retrieve humongous space if you haven’t cleared it for a while.
Before deleting all the files and folders, you can check if you have any important file worth restoring, click Restore. Also, you can directly delete empty the contents, click Empty Recycle Bin from ribbon from the upper left corner.
You can also change Recycle Bin Properties from the Ribbon. You can change the size of the bin or also choose Don’t move files to the Recycle Bin. If you select this option, Windows will permanently delete the files, no keeping them in Recycle Bin.
Note: However, Don’t move files to the Recycle bin is not a recommended option as it might make you choose an option to get deleted files back.
2. Downloaded Program Files
You can locate the file in the C: drive and press Windows and R and type C:\Windows\Downloaded Program Files
It consists of files utilized by Internet Explorer’s Java applets and ActiveX Controls. These website component program objects that can be used by many application programs again.
This folder is not useful as ActiveX is not a new technology and Java is also very rarely used one. ActiveX is only used by Internet Explorer and it is rarely found on websites. If you don’t use Internet Explorer, then you can delete these files and recover space on your hard drive.
3. Windows Temporary Folder
You can find the Windows temporary folders by pressing Windows and R together to get Run windows and type – C:\Windows\Temp.
Files and folders in the Temp folder are the information used by Windows one time and are not needed now.
You can access the folder and select all of them by pressing Ctrl and A together. Press Delete to delete them all.
You might get a prompt not to delete some files, exclude them and delete others.
4. Rempl Folder
This folder can be located in C: Drive. You can locate it, by pressing Windows and R to get Run Window. Type C:\Program Files\rempl
The Rempl folder consists of various small files and a few Task Manager processes are connected to it as well. The folder is related to Windows 10 update delivery. This contains “reliability improvements” which helps Windows 10 updates work properly and remove incompatibility issues. You can delete Rempl folder and there are no side effects to it. However, the files are not taking much space and can make Windows upgrade, less irritating, so you can leave it to be.
5. Windows.old folder
You can get Windows. old folder in C: drive. You can press Windows and R to get the Run window and type C:\Windows.old
Windows.old is a folder created when you upgrade Windows version which keeps a copy of your old Windows files. This contains old installation files, files which didn’t get transferred properly.
These files can be used to go back to the older version of Windows. However, you remove these files if not needed, as they do hold a lot of space. You can remove it by selecting and deleting the file, by pressing Delete.
You can also delete it by running a Disk Cleanup. You can select Previous Windows installation from the list and delete it.
6. Hibernation File
To locate hibernation file, press Windows and R and type C:\hiberfil.sys.
Hibernation mode is alike sleep mode on Windows, however, in hibernation mode system saves all the open work to the hard drive and then shuts down. You can remove the battery and stay in this mode for a week. In this way, you can start it and pick up where you left off.
However, this method takes up space and that what hibernation file is for. The hibernation file can take up to gigabytes of hard drive space.
In case you didn’t use hibernation and still wish to disable it, then get it done by using Command Prompt.
- Press Windows and X and open Start context
- Navigate to Windows PowerShell (Admin) or Command Prompt (Admin), click it.
- To disable hibernation, type this command: powercfg.exe /hibernate off.
- Press Enter
The command will disable hibernation and Windows must delete the hibernation file for you. However, when hibernation mode is disabled, it will stop your computer from fast startup on Windows.
7. LiveKernalReports
These files can be located in C drive just like the others. Press Windows and R to get Run box and type C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports
It is a directory which is used to scan large files on the computer. This folder keeps all the dump files, which are Windows’s information logs
In case your computer encounters a problem, you can delete any DMP file extension huge files.
Note: It is recommended to use Disk Cleanup, instead of deleting the files manually.
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Well, your Windows computer is self-engineered to clean the old files which are not needed. Therefore, you don’t need to remove folders unless you don’t get disk space low warning. You can always run the Disk Cleanup tool to remove obsolete folders and files once every month.
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