For the IT gurus out there....

My primary drive is a 250gb SSD and the only thing on the drive is the Windows 10 OS; file storage is all on other SSD's. It seems the available drive space is getting smaller and smaller. Is there a drive cleaner/organizer out there that's any better than CCleaner?? I just don't trust CCleaner to NOT install a bunch of bloatware on the drive I'm trying to clean up.

Out of the 232gb of total space, only 71.7gb is free. It used to be over 100...

TIA!!!

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
I just don't trust CCleaner to NOT install a bunch of bloatware on the drive I'm trying to clean up.

Not IT guru. Not even IT janitor. But CCleaner never did that to mine. But, like probably all of them out there, it will occasionally try to ask you to upgrade to higher level. You know, stop using freebie and open your wallet.

Most of that is surely data that could be moved to an external hard drive.

It is likely a bunch of unused temporary files (.tmp) left over from other S/W"s poor housekeeping habits. CCleaner does a great job of eliminating them.

What have you heard about CCleaner that makes it suspect in your eyes? I've only heard good things about it. If you don't trust CCleaner to clean out temp files, why would you trust any other similar software?

If it's just about it possibly installing bloatware, I've always declined the prompts and have never had anything installed by it.

Avast acquired Piriform, the makers of CCleaner, back in 2017. Perhaps that is the concern.

I'd run Disk Cleanup:

Right click on the Hard disk/SSD --> Then click Properties
Click to open Disk Cleanup

Select and Delete files (file types) using Disk Cleanup

From Windows: 'If you want to reduce the number of unnecessary files on your hard disk to free up disk space and help your computer run faster, use Disk Cleanup. It removes temporary files, empties the Recycle Bin, and removes a variety of system files and other items that you no longer need.'

Often the largest 'cache' of unnecessary files can be identified for deletion by clicking 'Cleanup System Files'. There you will have the option of deleting Windows Update data and other file types that are no longer needed. As long as the computer OS is running OK it's perfectly safe to delete these files, and doing so will likely recover Multiple Gigabytes of space!

FYI - When you click on 'Cleanup System Files' you will have the option to select which file types to delete, so at the very least you can see how much space you can recover and what types of files you can delete BEFORE you actually delete them.

You can also delete Backup and Restore Data (Restore Points) to recover space. Again, as long as your computer OS is running OK it's perfectly safe to do this. If you're feeling cautious, just keep the data for the last/most recent Restore Point.

CCleaner is fine, I use it a couple times a week.

No bloatware.

It finds and offers to take out a bunch of crud accumulated by normal operation and buried in obscure folders - one example: browsers are notorious for saving stuff in case it will speed up re-loading pages, etc.

If you want to find out exactly what is taking up room on your drives, see if you can find the freeware program "Folder Size".

You click on a disk letter, and it goes through all the folders and subfolders and gives you the storage each takes up. You can drill down to individual folder contents or keep it at a high level. Very useful.

Thanks for the info!

My son has a gaming PC and being 12 years old, he often clicks on stuff that shouldn't be... Not infectious stuff, more of the annoying type.

I will give CCleaner a try!

Thanks for the replies, everyone. Lunasee hit the nail on the head...I think a bunch of temp/unused/unecessary files are taking up space.

I have used CCleaner in the past (not on this system) and just have personal trepidations about installing "utility" software on a computer and what else it might install behind the scenes. I'll try the Windows utilities first and then use CCleaner if the issue isn't resolved.

TGIF! (though TGIF might be a Wednesday for me )

I was always under the impression that you weren’t supposed to use disk cleanup utilities on SSD’s?

Backup your data before you delete anything. I routinely use the built in disk cleanup tool as others have mentioned. These are the steps I take to clean up my OS drives on Windows 10.

11 is basically the same but you will have to search for the disk cleanup tool.


Right click your OS drive, likely C:\ and click Properties.






I check every box, every time. This works for me, but your situation could be different.


Confirm you want to delete all the selected files.


You will see this and it could take a little while to finish.


If you still have a large amount of unaccounted for data on your drive Windirstat can help to identify it.
https://windirstat.net/download.html

I usually just do my OS drive but you can scan all your drives.


Here is what you will see when it completes:



I am curious to see what other members do with their Hiberfil.sys or pagefile.sys files. These seem to take up a of lot space. I do not use hibernate on my PC's. I thought this could be part of the OP's issue as well. I did look into removing them but I couldn't find any convincing data to do so. It seemed that I would end up causing more issues than it was worth, so I just left them alone.

^^^^^^

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I was always under the impression that you weren’t supposed to use disk cleanup utilities on SSD’s?

You're thinking of Defragmenting. There's NO issue using the Disk Cleanup Utility as posted by myself and followed up by the impressively detailed tutorial posted 'xantom'.

The Disk Cleanup utility just identifies unnecessary files and gives you the option to delete them. Defragmenting actually moves data which, while better for a HDD in that it makes reading files more efficient/quicker, in the case of an SSD, unnecessarily consumes the finite number of 'write cycles' in the memory blocks. Plus, as there's no moving platters & read/write heads, there's virtually ZERO lag time to access/read a fragmented file on an SSD anyway. The only thing one might consider w/ an SSD is 'Optimizing Trim' which the vast majority of users don't really need to do and won't gain any significant benefit from anyway.

I trust CCleaner as my primary. Been doing it for over 20+ years.

Also always have a secondary / alternate solution. In this case, try Privazer Free. Will remove a bunch of Restore Points and Update files left behind.

Does a good job and works with SSD. Haven’t had any issues in 10 years. It is a bit more exhaustive than CCleaner and that is why i use CCleaner frequently and Privazer once in a while. Time.

0-0

In addition to what has been said previously ~ a program I use (free) is Folder-Size.

https://www.folder-size.com/

There are others so use what works best for you.
I have used it time and time again on client servers, desktops to see what files I can safely delete to save space.
I use it mostly on servers that are more difficult to just reimage to a new drive.
Usually, it is log files or similar.

Of course it helps to know what you can safely delete, so be careful.

On Desktop use ~ you are usually looking at excess user files in the primary profile ~ pics, videos, docs, email.

A Folder-Size type of program just lets you zoom in on where the bulk is.
Be sure to run the program "as Administrator" to get everything.

On CCleaner ~ I have used it, but overall found it not all that useful but it does not hurt anything.

Just buy a bigger drive as was the intent by MSFT to increase files, they own lots of shares in all the big drive makers

Use the MSFT disk cleaner first, see what you can clean up, it's free, it works, and it's easy.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
On Desktop use ~ you are usually looking at excess user files in the primary profile ~ pics, videos, docs, email.

Good Point! Many don't realize this and give zero consideration to files associated w/ the User Profile(s). Whenever I deploy a new PC (my personal machines), I change the target folder location for Pics, Videos, Documents, and Downloads to another physical drive, so the 'C:' drive has the OS and installed programs ONLY! That way my data is always separate and the drive w/ the OS is as small/clean as possible. Should there be an issue with the OS or that physical drive, my data is NEVER at risk. On Gaming Rigs, I install the Games themselves (and Game Data) on another physical drive as well. This is a bit more involved/challenging w/ Steam Games (which seems to be the majority of games now!), but it can be done.

quote:

I am curious to see what other members do with their Hiberfil.sys or pagefile.sys files

Whether you use hibernate or not, you system is configured to use it, hence Hiberfil.sys. You can look into changing your settings to disable hibernate so this file would not be needed.


pagefile.sys is used for paging operations by the OS. This files size can theoretically be changed through your configuration settings, but the default settings are usually not that far out of line. The size is not static unless you set it up to be a fixed size... This file will exist whether you like it or not.

What you "do" with those files isn't really up to you, other than how you have your OS configured.

The easiest thing to do, in my mind, is swap out that small(ish) 256GB drive for a larger one, they've gotten pretty cheap... Seriously, 256GB is dinky by today's standards. Unless you just like tinkering with OS files that, ummm, might not end well.

quote:

Whether you use hibernate or not, you system is configured to use it, hence Hiberfil.sys. You can look into changing your settings to disable hibernate so this file would not be needed.


pagefile.sys is used for paging operations by the OS. This files size can theoretically be changed through your configuration settings, but the default settings are usually not that far out of line. The size is not static unless you set it up to be a fixed size... This file will exist whether you like it or not.

What you "do" with those files isn't really up to you, other than how you have your OS configured.

I have to revisit this again. Thanks for the response!