My SSD showed about 250 GB of used space a week ago, but now roughly 600 GB of additional storage appears to be occupied. I cannot find the missing data by browsing my usual files and folders. What is the best way to locate whatever is consuming the space, and what kinds of files should I check first?
3 Answers
Use a disk space analyzer such as WinDirStat or WizTree. These tools show the size of every folder and file, making it much easier to identify where the storage went. You can also right-click major folders and check their properties, then keep drilling down until you find the unusually large directory.
Look in temporary-file locations, including the public user profile folders. Some applications create huge .tmp files. Delete them only after confirming they are not actively being used—close the related programs first, and do not force-delete files that Windows says are currently in use.
If you play games, check shader caches, game download folders, temporary files, and launcher libraries. A game or mod could also be stuck writing errors to a log file over and over. Some graphics or OpenGL errors can be recorded hundreds of times per second, so several hours of gameplay could create an enormous log. A disk analyzer should reveal this quickly. If the computer is shared, also check whether someone downloaded a large game or other files.
Thanks, that helped me track down what was using all the space.