Delete unnecessary windows files

Select Delete Files to confirm that you want to permanently delete the files. Disk Cleanup will get rid of the files and close when it has completed.

If you use your computer for several hours each day and download dozens of files, you will need to clean out the junk more frequently than someone who only hops on a couple of times each week. However, if you run Disk Cleanup once a week or twice a month, you can keep those junk files from building up and slowing you down. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance.

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By Tricia Goss. Tricia Goss. She's written tips and tutorials for Microsoft Office applications and other sites. Tweet Share Email. In This Article. Before You Begin. Managing the Recycle Bin. Trashing Temporary Files. The Disk Cleanup Tool. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Email Address Sign up There was an error.

Please try again. You're in! Thanks for signing up. There was an error. Tell us why! Similarly, Display delete confirmation dialog will require an extra step whenever you erase a file. Whenever you upgrade your version of Windows, the system keeps a copy of your prior files called Windows. This folder essentially holds everything that made up your old installation, in case something didn't transfer correctly.

If necessary, you can use this folder to roll back to a previous version of Windows. It's also possible to open the folder and grab a few stray files if you need. Windows automatically removes this folder a short time after upgrading, but you can remove it yourself if you're crunched for space.

It won't delete if you try to go through the File Explorer, so type Disk Cleanup into the Start Menu and launch the tool as described earlier.

Click Clean up system files at the bottom of the window and let the utility do another scan. Once that's done, look for the Previous Windows installation s and delete it using this tool.

Obviously, removing these files makes it harder to recover data in case of an issue. After performing a Windows upgrade even just to the latest version of Windows 10 we advise you to hold onto this folder until you're sure everything is working properly.

This folder's name is a bit confusing. It actually holds files used by Internet Explorer's ActiveX controls and Java applets, so if you use the same feature on a website, you don't have to download it twice. In effect, this folder is useless today. ActiveX is an extremely outdated technology that's full of security holes, and Java is near-extinct on today's web. Internet Explorer is the only browser that supports ActiveX, and you'll probably only encounter it on ancient corporate websites if ever now.

Most home users don't use IE anymore, let alone ActiveX. Your Downloaded Program Files folder might already be empty, but feel free to clean out its contents if it's not. The LiveKernelReports folder is another directory which likely comes up when you're scanning for large files on your computer.

This folder is home to dump files, which are ongoing information logs that Windows keeps. If your computer runs into an issue, you can analyze the contents of these files to start troubleshooting your problem.

Any huge files ending with the DMP file extension in this folder are safe to delete. Like the above locations, though, we recommend using Disk Cleanup instead of deleting the file yourself. When Windows crashes or you have other major computer problems, don't delete these dump files right away. You can use a program like WhoCrashed to get more info from them.

While the Rempl folder isn't large, you might be surprised when you see it appear on your system. It contains several small files, and you might even notice a few Task Manager processes connected to it.

This folder is connected to Windows 10 update delivery. If you find this only frees up a bit of space, you can use Disk Cleanup to delete system files. Just click Clean up system files , select a drive, check the boxes of files to be deleted, then click OK and choose Delete Files. PC cleanup enables you to have abundant disk space and system resource. If you are a terminal enthusiast, you may use Command Prompt to delete temporary files on your computer.

You can manually delete Windows 11 temporary files in File Explorer. These files go to Recycle Bin and you can recover them if needed. In addition to deleting temporary files manually, you can configure Storage Sense in Windows 11 as per your requirement to automatically clean these files. Those are all the ways to delete temporary files in Windows This can free up some disk space but this is not enough.

Facebook Twitter Linkedin Reddit Summary : Deleting temporary files is a good way to free up some disk space.