Need help with a full drive and no storage

[FirstLight]

I even downloaded an app to help me get rid of those damn microsoft and HP apps that I will never use but won't "uninstall"


I have basically stripped my computer of ALL apps and still cant get more than 2 GB free... another 29GB is still used and I cant get it to use an external USB as storage....

I heard that you can upload most pf your files to the cloud and then delete them off your drive that way... but I have no idea which files to move and I dont wanna screw something up.

I have plenty of room on google drive, so that would be the easiest option.


It's windows 10 HP laptop about 2 yrs old and not fill of viruses or anything, just FULL of I dont know what and now I cant even download or run microsoft office and that's crippling me!!

[Dan]

1. Did you empty the Recycle Bin?

[leftieNanner]

2. You Could Try Moving The Files That You Don't Need

But don't want to delete entirely onto a separate hard drive.

I bought a Seagate one for $100. It's about the size of a cassette tape. Holds a ton of stuff.

If you moved the files you don't use all the time onto the hard drive, then you could free up some space.

[drray23]

3. check if your recycle bin is empty.

If not, click on it and then empty recycle bin. It could be gigabytes if you never cleaned it and are not setup for it to autopurge periodically.
Likewise, the cache for your browsers. Depending whether or not you use chrome, explorer, etc.. they all have options to purge/empty cache. All of that may give you enough to be able to do your updates, hook up a usb thumdrive and backup stuff you can do without

[PoliticAverse]

4. First get something that visually shows you what is using space on your drive...

so you can see where the space is really being used. I like the free Sequiaview, but there are other programs that do the same thing...

https://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

[BootinUp]

5. Run the storage analysis Under settings , storage

It helps you see what can be removed and helps you do it. There is also a smart automatic thingabob but take a full backup b4 using that. external HDD u should consider buying. 4tB external can probably be had for around 1 c note.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. OK, first things first-- how big is the drive? Assuming its's an SSD, probably 250GB, but...

could be anything. If you have 29 GB used and still no space, that's a tiny drive.

So, what's taking up all the room? Images, huge text files, downloaded books... That's the kind of stuff that could go into the cloud.

Do you use File Explorer? Open it and dig around through the various files, first checking downloads. Delete all the installation files you won't need. Then dig through documents, pictures, and whatever else and delete or move to the cloud.

I don't know why you can't move stuff to a usb thumb drive or external disk. Once in a while my computers refuse to recognize usb ports for some oddball reason, but eventually they end up working. Dig around through "settings" and see if you can find anything.

While you're in File Explorer, over on the left right click on C: and then "properties". You'll see how much of drive is actually used and you can use the cleanup button to help a little.

[FirstLight]

8. yeah, i will have to do some more poking around in Cdrive

i have nothing like books photos or apps, literally have dumped everything off that I could find...

ugh

Im gonna keep googling what specific files I can dump in windows or program files... I know that the updates etc can be deleted after use...

[Timewas]

7. Maybe

Bite the bullet and take it in and have a larger HD installed, they will move everything over for you..

[FirstLight]

9. that's what will happen when I get some tax or stimulus money...

right now, im on my own

[sboatcar]

10. Its usually windows update uninstall files that need to be removed. Here's some instructions

Press Win + R on the keyboard and type services.msc in the Run box.
Stop the service named Windows Update.
Open File Explorer.
Go to C:WINDOWSSoftwareDistributionDownload. Copy-paste this path to the explorer's address bar.
Select all files of the folder(press the Ctrl-A keys).
Press the Delete key on the keyboard.

[FirstLight]

11. YES!!!!! thank you!

got up to 4gb now free!

shit....where else can I get rid of this crap?

if you know of any more files in windows I can chuck, let me know!!! I've been googling this all weekend and all it did was confuse me more... I KNEW it could be this easy!

[sboatcar]

13. Windows 10 has a lot of bloat in it

I would recommend checking out this program
https://windirstat.net/

It analyzes which folders are taking up the most space and can be helpful in finding things that are clogging up your computer. It might be surprising what you find that you didn't think was there.

[eppur_se_muova]

16. Link failed. Try Source Forge (link) ... https://sourceforge.net/projects/windirstat/

https://sourceforge.net/projects/windirstat/

Also gives equivalent programs for Linux and OSX.

[lastlib]

12. Another possibility is to clear your browser history

And temp files. Anything with an extension .tmp that's not dated today can probly go.

[douglas9]

14. Remove unwanted Windows 10 apps with this new open source tool

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/remove-unwanted-windows-10-apps-with-this-new-open-source-tool/

[eppur_se_muova]

15. Did you run Clean Up from the Tools tab ? (In the Properties dialog box for that drive) nt