System Free Up Drive Space in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you different options that can be used to free up drive space in Windows 11.

If your PC is running low on free space, you might not be able to install important Windows updates, and your PC’s performance may be affected.

You can pick and choose from within the options below that best fits your needs to free up drive space.

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Cleanup recommendations can help you identify and clean up temporary files and system files from your device.





Windows creates temporary files while installing apps, loading web pages, or running updates. Left unchecked, they can use and hold up storage space.

Temporary files serve a purpose in the moment—they help Windows and apps run faster. But once they’ve done their job, they are supposed to be deleted. However, some can linger: system cache, leftover installation files, thumbnails, even old update data. Over weeks and months, these “leftovers” build up. That’s when you start noticing lag, low-storage alerts, or even failed updates. Regularly clearing them out is one of the easiest Windows performance tips you can follow.





The C:\hiberfil.sys file size depends on if the hibernation file type is full or reduced.

If you use fast startup and don't use hibernate, then you can specify the hibernation file type as reduced to free up space in the table below.

If you don't use fast startup and hibernate, then you can disable hibernate to free up more space in the table below.






Uninstall apps you no longer want or use to remove it and free up drive space.





If you don't want to uninstall an app from the Microsoft Store, you can move the app from the Windows "Local Disk (C)" drive to another drive to free up drive space.





Personal files such as videos, music, photos, and documents can take up a lot of space on your device. If there are files you no longer need on your device, you can either delete them or move them to another internal or external drive.





By default, Windows stores your Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, OneDrive, Pictures, Saved Games, Searches, and Videos folders in your account's %UserProfile% folder (ex: "C:\Users\Brink") on the Windows drive. If your Windows drive is low on free space, you could move your Documents, Music, Pictures, and/or Videos folders to a different drive or network location.





System protection in Windows is a recovery feature designed to help you safeguard your system settings. It primarily involves creating and managing restore points, which are snapshots of system files, installed applications, Windows Registry, and system settings at a specific point in time.

If you don't use System Restore, then you can turn off System Protection for a drive to free up space on the drive. This will delete all restore points and reserved maximum storage space for the drive.




System protection in Windows is a recovery feature designed to help you safeguard your system settings. It primarily involves creating and managing restore points, which are snapshots of system files, installed applications, Windows Registry, and system settings at a specific point in time.

If you use System Restore, then you can adjust the maximum disk space per drive used for system protection. As space fills up, older restore points will automatically be deleted to make room for new ones.





System protection in Windows is a recovery feature designed to help you safeguard your system settings. It primarily involves creating and managing restore points, which are snapshots of system files, installed applications, Windows Registry, and system settings at a specific point in time.

If you use System Restore, then you can delete all, all but the most recent, or individual system restore points for a selected drive that has system protection turned on for it to be able to free up space for that drive.





File History regularly backs up versions of your files in the Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, and Desktop folders and the OneDrive files available offline on your PC. Over time, you'll have a complete history of your files. If the originals are lost, damaged, or deleted, you can restore them. You can also browse and restore different versions of your files. For example, if you want to restore an older version of a file (even if it wasn't deleted or lost), you can browse through a timeline, select the version you want, and restore it.

If you don't use File History, then you can disable it to free up drive space.





File History regularly backs up versions of your files in the Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, and Desktop folders and the OneDrive files available offline on your PC. Over time, you'll have a complete history of your files. If the originals are lost, damaged, or deleted, you can restore them. You can also browse and restore different versions of your files. For example, if you want to restore an older version of a file (even if it wasn't deleted or lost), you can browse through a timeline, select the version you want, and restore it.

If your current File History drive is full and need to use another drive or you need to move your File History to a new drive, then you can change the File History drive to do so.





File History regularly backs up versions of your files in the Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, and Desktop folders and the OneDrive files available offline on your PC. Over time, you'll have a complete history of your files. If the originals are lost, damaged, or deleted, you can restore them. You can also browse and restore different versions of your files. For example, if you want to restore an older version of a file (even if it wasn't deleted or lost), you can browse through a timeline, select the version you want, and restore it.

If you use File History, then you can use File History Cleanup to manually delete versions of files and folders older than the selected age, except the most recent version of a file or folder. All other files and folders, such as versions were excluded or removed from your libraries, are also deleted.





Recall is an experience exclusive to Copilot+ PCs that will help you easily find and remember things you've seen using natural language. To help provide you with that "photographic" memory, you can opt in to saving snapshots of your screen periodically. You can quickly search your snapshots to find things on your Copilot+ PC.

If you don't use Recall, then you can disable Recall Snapshots to free up drive space.





Recall is an experience exclusive to Copilot+ PCs that will help you easily find and remember things you've seen using natural language. To help provide you with that "photographic" memory, you can opt in to saving snapshots of your screen periodically. You can quickly search your snapshots to find things on your Copilot+ PC.

If you use Recall, then you can change the maximum storage size and duration for Recall Snapshots to limit drive space usage.





Recall is an experience exclusive to Copilot+ PCs that will help you easily find and remember things you've seen using natural language. To help provide you with that "photographic" memory, you can opt in to saving snapshots of your screen periodically. You can quickly search your snapshots to find things on your Copilot+ PC.

If you use Recall, then you can delete all or specific snapshots to free up drive space.





The component store (WinSxS folder) contains components that make-up Windows and allow you operate your system. These components are kept in this folder in case you need to rollback changes or repair corrupted files. The operating system automatically reduces the size of the WinSxS folder. Windows also uses internal processes to reduce the size of the WinSxS folder, such as uninstalling and deleting packages with components that have been replaced by other components with newer versions. Previous versions of some components are kept on the system for a period of time, allowing you to rollback if necessary. After a period of time, these older components are automatically removed from the installation.

You can manually clean up the Component Store (WinSxS folder) to reduce its size to free up drive space.





To make sure your device can successfully update and that it runs its best, Windows reserves a portion of storage space on your device for use by temporary files, caches, and other files. When your device is low on space, Windows will clear reserved storage so it can be used for other processes, like a Windows update. Reserving storage also helps keep disk space usage on your device more predictable and more stable. Microsoft anticipates that reserved storage size will start at about 7GB, however the amount of reserved space will vary over time based on how you use your device.

Disabling reserved storage will free up the reserved drive space.





A paging file (aka: "page file" and "virtual memory") enables the system to remove infrequently accessed modified data from physical memory to let the system use physical memory more efficiently for more frequently accessed data. Windows also uses the page file to store data when physical memory (RAM) is full. The system automatically manages the size of the paging file ("C:\pagefile.sys") on the Windows drive by default.

You can reduce the size of the paging file to free up drive space if needed.





Compact OS compresses all operating system binaries and sets the system state to Compact, which remains unless administrator changes it.

While Compact OS will free up drive space, it can have a small negative impact on system performance.





If you have large sized files or a lot of files that you don't open often and don't have another drive to move them to, then you could compress the files and folders to help free up drive space.





OneDrive Files On-Demand helps you access all your cloud storage in OneDrive without having to download all of them and use file storage space on your Windows device.

If you use OneDrive, then you can enable OneDrive Files On-Demand to free up drive space by keeping the files saved on the cloud instead of your PC.





The "%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Windows.db" file is the core database for Windows Search. Sometimes, the file can grow very large. Rebuilding the search index can free up drive space used by this database.





When adding a new user account in Windows, a profile for the account is automatically created when the user signs in to the new account for the first time.

A user profile is a collection of settings that make the computer look and work the way you want it to for a user account. It is stored in the account's C:\Users\<user name> profile folder, and contains the account's settings for desktop backgrounds, screen savers, pointer preferences, sound settings, and other features. User profiles ensure that your personal preferences are used whenever you sign in to Windows. A user's profile folder also contains their personal folders such as the Contacts, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Favorites, Links, Music, OneDrive, Pictures, Saved Games, Searches, and Videos folders.

If you have user account(s) on your PC that are not being used or no longer needed, you can delete them to free up drive space used by their profile folder.



That's it,
Shawn Brink