305MB Temporary files won't delete!

DigitalGoat said:

Have tried the Settings app > System > Storage > Temporary files to see what that says about temporary files?

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glasskuter said:

According to that screenshot those files are Windows Defender files. Defender would probably have to be turned off before they can be deleted.
305 mb is not enough space that I would worry about. However, you can run disk cleanup at boot if it bothers you. See instructions in this article.

How to Run Disk Cleanup on Startup

Want to run Disk Cleanup every time Windows starts to make sure you never have files on your system you don't need? You can set-up Disk Cleanup to run at startup using the Windows Task Scheduler, how that works, we explain below. Disk Cleanup removes unwanted files from your hard disk, including...

windowsinstructed.com

Note: Unless you want to retain the task to run at every boot, be sure and delete the task after you are finished with it.

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DigitalGoat said:

I have noticed similar behaviour normally related to temporary internet files, they are flagged as delete able but remain regardless, Defender files tend to show up but not be able to delete either, I think this is a conflict between how disk cleanup/ storage sense determine what is a temporary file and what the individual apps see as a temporary file.
Try using Treesize Free run as Admin to scan your drive and sort results by size, but first turn on Show hidden files and folders, you should be able to track down the errant files at least.
Post Treesize result windows, use paint or similar app to mask out any sensitive descriptions first, but try to leave the folder names. main parent and sizes as much as possible.

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BrianInEngland said:

Every time I run Disk Cleanup it shows 305MB of Temporary files. Running the tool appears to delete them but it's always showing again next time I run, and always exactly 305MB.
My Temp folders are NOT stored on the C: drive, I changed them in the Environment Variables.

Treesize doesn't appear to indicate anything, not that I can find anyway. Recycle bin is empty, no pagefile.sys on the C: drive. Also no System restore points.
Disk Cleanup is run as Admin

Any ideas?

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johnlgalt said:

That's normal.

If you actually navigate to your temp folder and manually delete everything, you'll also get a bunch of files (and a folder or two) that cannot be deleted - because the files are currently in use. And, I'm not trying to be rude, but if 305 MB of space means that much, you have larger problems than those files in use by the OS.

For example, for a 10 GB drive (which is too small for *just* Windows these days) that 305 MB represents roughly 3% of your total drive space. If you have a 100 GB HD, that's 0.3%. And if you have a 1 TB drive, that is 0.03% of your space.

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johnlgalt said:

You temp folder is in your \Users tree - specifically, \Users\{account name}\AppData\Local\Temp - no matter which drive it is on. I use the tutorial from here / 10 forums / forums to move the \Users tree to my second drive during installation every single time. the files are there - and if you navigate to that folder, you'll find that you cannot delete some files because they are currently in use by the system.

As long as it is not a problem, exploring and trying to understand something is, in my book, always a good thing. I'd try going to that folder and manually deleting, as you can probably get it to be a smaller value (in terms of space) but I've never, not once, ever been able to delete everything there when logged in to that account.

Booting an alternate OS, though, will usually let you clean that folder entirely - which is what I usually do before making my \Users folder backups before reinstallation - so all that junk isn't also backed up.

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