If you work a lot and intensively on your computer, you can quickly fill up your hard drive partitions with documents and files. For SSDs that are lightning fast, this doesn't matter, but it's not suitable for regular hard drives. We'll tell you how to clean up your hard drive on Windows 10 and free up gigabytes of valuable space for more useful information.

What is Disk Cleanup and how does it affect your computer?

“Disk Cleanup” is an integral part of the Windows operating system, “built-in” by developers into versions 10 and earlier. And it just so happened that deleting temporary unnecessary files has become a habit for users. What are the advantages of this tool and how can cleaning affect the operation of the computer?

Let us immediately note that you should not wait for something incredible; after this procedure, your computer will not “fly”. Yes, the OS will speed up and you will get rid of garbage: temporary files of the system itself (including after updates) or programs. The developers, of course, do not recommend going into the registry, so if you want to get rid of errors there, it is better to use one of the special utilities.

When to do disk cleanup + how to check

You can also find out how much free space is on your hard drive using third-party programs, for example, WinDIRStat or through standard OS tools. Windows 10 comes with a new tool that allows you to scan and analyze your drive. Below is a short guide on how to use it.

Here you can delete temporary files, empty the Trash or the Downloads folder.

How to properly perform Advanced Disk Cleanup in Windows 10

In Windows 10, there is another way to clean up the disk, and for most users it is more familiar.

1. Go to “My Computer”, select the hard drive, right-click on the icon and select “Properties” from the menu.
2. On the “General” tab, click the “Disk Cleanup” button.

   Open disk properties, click the cleanup button

3. The disk scan will begin.

   Scanning the disk will take a little time

4. Then a list of files will appear in the tab; you can check off what you want to delete. Click the “Clean up system files” button.

   At this stage you can select the elements to be deleted

5. In addition, after verification, the “Advanced” tab will become available. Here you can remove unnecessary programs and system restore points.

   After scanning the disk, a tab will become available with the ability to remove programs and OS restore points

6. The utility will scan the disk again and estimate how much space will be freed up as a result. Click “OK”, then “Delete files”.

   Cleaning speed depends on the number of files being deleted

   The Disk Cleanup window will appear with many available options that allow you to configure the removal of unnecessary files from the HDD and SSD. Until the cleanup process is completed, the Command Prompt should be open.

   Video: removing unnecessary files with a Windows system program

   The frequency of performing this procedure depends on how optimized your computer is, how often you perform various updates, download files, and install programs. In any case, using a standard Windows utility, you can always check the fullness of the disk and make a conclusion whether it needs to be cleaned or not.