UKC

Hi
I think this is a common problem so hopefully I can get some easy to follow advice. 
My work laptop is a Dell thing, Windows 10, 64-bit. About 2 years old, mostly running fine. 
The hard drive is around 260Gb
I don't store loads of stuff on this, really only the system files, a few additional software applications, and some admin. 
By my reckoning, it should always have about 100Gb free. 

However, it (increasingly frequently) shows the C: drive full to capacity. 
Last year this happened and I did a massive purge and got rid of around 100Gb of "crap". It crept up again, without my putting 100Gb of new crap on there. Since then, I've variously cleared out 30Gb, and seen it fill up again, etc. etc. A few weeks ago, cleared 20Gb. Full again last week. Just cleared 8Gb now by uninstalling some programs, as I need to install something new. 

I've Googled this several times and mostly get badly written "articles" that are really trying to push freeware disc management applications onto me; or badly written articles that are nearly impossible to follow, mostly going on about hidden/cached/temp files building up in the background. Maybe they are right but generally I can't get my directory to match what they are describing. 

Hoping maybe some helpful bod on here can recommend a "one stop shop" for sorting this out. 
 

Thanks in advance. 


 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Sorry not a one ste fix. First step is to figure out who is to blame.

If on windows 10 the inbuilt storage gives an okay view. If it isnt enough windirstat or similar give a better breakdown.

Once you have that it will help you figure out what is consuming it all. Might be file history or restore points.

In reply to mondite:

Is that from Control Panel - System - Storage?

The Free Up Space tool has found 4Gb of Windows Update Cleanup, which I'll remove. 

The software I just installed was 7.5Gb and the drive is almost full again. 
I spend quite a bit of time about once a fortnight desperately trying to make even 1Gb of space, I've just realised. As per my OP, there is increasingly less "easy to find" crap to get rid of, as time goes on. 
Thank you

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Yes. Its gives a rough idea whats where. The other programs are better if you have lots of music/documents/videos though since show a better breakdown.

Just noticed you said its 256. I can see that being eaten easily with modern software.

In reply to mondite:

True, given that what I just installed (Volume Graphics StudioMax) is 7.5Gb. But really there's not much on this laptop. MS Office, iTunes, three browsers, ImageJ, IrfanView, and Windows10 itself. No bloated documents, no music or videos....

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Check your temporary items folder for large files. You’ll need a utility like CCCleaner for this as you won’t see the contents via windows explorer. My laptops were both exhibiting the same behaviour and I found massive media files in there, the removal of which solved the problem. Also switch off any Talk to text functionality.

In reply to BnB:

Thanks. Is CCCleaner a standard recommended tool? I guess there are loads (as per my OP saying that Googling the problem just gave me lots of people peddling freeware that I am naturally wary of!)

In reply to Blue Straggler:

From what you say about cleaning things out and the speed at which this is happening, this isn't just stuff slowly filling up.  Something is gobbling up space in a way in which it really shouldn't. This can happen with a wide range of different software. Sometimes windows update does it. Sometimes google drive does it.  You could check each of the likely suspects in turn, but that's going to be slow and frustrating.

There is a bit of software that mondite mentioned called "windirstat". It's simple, free, and doesn't do any weird shit like some "disk management" apps do. It just hows you graphically which files and folders are using up space. Run that, and the culprit should stick out like a sore thumb. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Email programs can fill stuff up without you noticing. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I'm pretty sure BnB means CCleaner (two Cs, not 3). It's common, it's pretty good at getting rid of many types of rubbish files, but I'm not a huge fan myself. 

In reply to Jack B:

Thanks. Take my description of the speed at which it is happening, fairly loosely/vaguely - I am not precise on the timings. I will look at windirstat later. Just off for me daily exercise now.

In reply to Jack B:

Yup I dont like it either. I would always go the route of windirstat or treesize since that tells me what is taking on the space in a nice pretty(ish) way. Then I get to decide what to do next rather than let the disk cleaner try and decide for me.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Hah! Spoke too soon. I'd cleared 9.5Gb, installed 7.5Gb of software, cleared a further 4Gb, and now magically I have only 500Mb left!

Time for windirstat right now I think 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Thanks everyone. 

windirstat quickly identified an enormous "windows.edb" file (108Gb) which is related to indexing/searching. 

I used Windows settings to clear it up, I am not sure whether I've managed to disable or "cap" it though!
I'll now have to try to remember all this. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

You need to turn off the Windows search service, a once only thing. If you search "turn off search service windows 10" and follow the instructions, all your current problems should be solved.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Yes. CCleaner has been around for years, is free and, as far as I can tell, works very well. It is very easy to accumulate a fair few bytes of rubbish in next to no time, but as said elsewhere a 260 Gig drive isn't that big these days.

Dave

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Get WizTree instead. You can thank me later. Imagine WinDirStat, only orderS of magnitude faster. It directly parses the file system structure rather than manually scanning the file system tree.

In reply to Alkis:

Why add that second bit, Alkis? What does it achieve for anyone? 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

ccleaner is fairly good (generally, the free version is fine for most personal purposes, you don't need to pay for it unless you want to support their efforts).  It took a hit a year or so ago over some privacy issues but seems to have reverted.  bleachbit is an alternative.  When installing either, be alive to the "extras" they sometimes like to helpfully suggest installing.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

It's a widely used turn of phrase to stress how good something is.

Why do you have to bite the hand that feeds you? People are giving you free advice. Be grateful. Bite your tongue.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

There are quite a few things that can take up space without you deliberately saving stuff. To name some:

Temporary files

Temporary Internet files. Cached pages, cookies, etc. 

Downloads folder. Each time you view a document online it could be sticking around in there. 

System restore points. There will be something in the settings that let's you choose how much to let it use. 

Scratch disk

System hibernate files

Windows logs and error dumps.

Redundant registry entries. 

Yada Yada. 260gb used to be a big disk but the current operating systems are really fat bastards. Ccleaner is a good recommendation and you can sort everything above with it I think. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

!?

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Check for failed updates using windows update. 
 

Also have a look on the folder 

C:WindowsSoftwareDistributionDownload

and see if it’s got large files there. If it’s repeatedly downloading updates and failing to install them that could be one reason.