In this article, you'll discover what's taking up spaces on your PC's hard drive.
Are you experiencing low disk space on your PC and you’re concerned on the things taking too much space on your PC, this article has list 4 things taking up too much space on your PC as well as how to free up the space. Read on to know more.
What’s taking up So Much Space on My PC?
- ü Recycle Bin Files
- ü Photos and Videos
- ü Multiple Users
- ü Applications
How can your Recycle Bin Consume space on your PC?
A lot of things could be taking much space on your PC. One of those things is the items in your PC Recycle Bin. What really take the space are the deleted files on your PC which saves in the recycle bin. Files in the recycle bin can be restored back to the PC if needed, but if not needed, best thing is to permanently delete them to free up space.
You can permanently delete items in PC recycle bin by opening recycle bin on your PC, select the items you don’t need and wish to permanently delete, and click on delete permanently. After this process, you have freed up space on your PC.
If you mistakenly delete a file on your system, you can restore them back from the recycle bin. Windows 10 allocate 10% of the total space on your PC hard drive for deleted files. This means when deleted files accumulate, it consumes space of your disk drive.
Can Photos and Videos Take Up Spaces on your PC?
Photos and videos also take much space on PC. This may not be very obvious especially when it of small quantity. If you want to check the space consumed by those files, simply go to the folder where you saved all photos and videos, Right click on the folder and click properties. There you see the space consumed by those videos and photos.
If you save photos and videos in a different folder, you can do the same for each folder to see the space consumed.
To free up space, you can save those files on Google drive. All you need to do is to create a Google account and link it with Google drive. Then you can simply upload those files to the Google drive and it will all be saved there. Provide you know the email and password linked to the Google drive, you’ll always have access to them anytime.
Some of the videos or photos may not be needed again; simply go delete them permanently on your PC.
Do Apps Take up Space?
Yes apps can also take space on PC. If you have numerous apps installed on your computer, it can take space on your PC hard drive. There are some apps that are very important to you; I mean apps that you use daily right? There are also some that are not needed or apps you don’t use; these apps are taking up space, simply uninstall them and delete every unnecessary data attached to the app.
Game apps tend to consume lots of space on PC, if you’re not used to playing games on PC and you have one installed, simply uninstall them to free up space.
If you’re not sure of the apps taking much space on your computer, open settings on your PC, click on apps, then apps & features; click on sort apps and select sort by largest apps.
How Can Multiple Users Take up Space?
If you have once shared your PC with someone and the person has his own user account on your PC, files stored in that user’s account will also consume space on your computer. Since it’s just one computer and one hard drive that bring you and the other user together, files stored by the other user will also consume the same disk space on the same PC.
You can see other users by going to settings, and then click accounts. If you want to remove the account, you click on remove right in front of the account.
Once you have removed the account, every data from that user will be deleted. It includes files on the desktop, photos, videos, documents and other files.
More Tips on How to Free up space on your PC
Now that you know those things taking much space on your PC, here are tips to help your free up space for your important files. These tips are applicable in windows 7, windows 8, windows 10, and windows 11. Check them out below.
- Delete Junk Files: Useless large files eats up your PC disk space, so deleting them is one way to free up the space.
- Run Disk Cleanup to Clean Temporary Files
- Uninstall Unused Software: Useless software should be uninstalled and deleted!
- Store your files on an External hard drive on the cloud: This is one way to free up disk space. Some important files may be consuming large space on your PC. In this case, consider saving them on another disk to have more space on your PC.
- Transfer Programs, Apps, and Games to External Hard Drive: This is in addition to the above tip on storing files on external drive. Apps, and games take much space on a PC's hard disk, so consider transferring them to an external hard drive
- Disable Hibernate: When you hibernate your system, every opened program on your PC needs space for it not to close. When you disable hibernate, space for keeping the programs open won't be needed. Shut down instead when you're done using your PC.
- Upgrade HDD/SSD: Your hard disk may be too small to accommodate lots of large files, so consider upgrading it to one with a larger disk space.
Final Note
There are cases where deleting files or uninstalling apps may not be enough to free up space. In this case, you need to get another disk drive with a larger space so as to have room to keep more data instead of ‘deleting to save’.
However, you’ve also got to look into those things taking much space on your PC so as to clear of doubts of whether unnecessary files are occupying your disk space. If it’s also necessary to delete or uninstall, do so to free up more space on your PC.