The Essentials: Freeing Up Space, the Smart Way (Premium)

We all run into this problem at some point, you are running out of disk space and it is time to delete some content to free up space. There are two ways to do this, the nuclear way, deleting your entire drive or being smart about it, and selecting some content that you move to external storage or delete permanently.

If you have already gone through the simple steps of deleting unnecessary cache and web files, removed language packs and apps from your machine, the next step is to review your machine for the large files that are taking up lots of space. These files are typically ISOs, games, VMs and a wide range of other file types that you will want to hunt down and remove them if they are no longer being used.

An app that I have been using for a few years that makes this process very simple is called WinDirStat. You can download the file here (it’s free) and it gives you a visual map of the large files that are sitting on your drive.

The map the application creates allows for drill-through capabilities and makes the identification of files that are taking up a lot of space on your machine, quite easily. Simply click the large blocks and the app will allow you explore your drive and remove large unused files quickly.

While not directly related to this app, but a method that I use to help slow the process of my disks filling up, is that if I don’t access a file in six months, I move it to OneDrive in a folder that is not synced to my desktop. It’s not perfect but if I am not accessing something frequently, I put it in the cloud.

Of course, you can always get a NAS (network attached storage) and dump content on their when your local drive fills up but that may not be the best solution for everyone. If you have created a good methodology for keeping your local disks from filling up, I’d love to hear it.

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