Why is my drive nearly full when I barely have any programs installed?
Asked by
MellowPine47
I mainly use my computer for playing video games, but my drive is almost full. Windows says 312 GB of 453 GB is being used. The storage breakdown claims that about 60.4 GB belongs to "Other users," even though nobody else uses this computer and there are no additional accounts listed. It also reports 154 GB under installed apps, although I only have four apps installed and each is smaller than 10 GB. What could be using the missing space, and how can I find it safely?
Answers
The storage figures in Windows Settings—especially “Installed apps” and “Other users”—can be quite inaccurate. Use a disk-usage analyzer such as WizTree or TreeSize to scan the drive and see which folders are actually taking up space. Download it from the developer’s official website, then run it with administrator permissions so it can inspect protected folders.
Reply to this answer
Hibernation can create a large hidden file on the system drive. If you never use hibernate or Fast Startup, opening Command Prompt as an administrator and running `powercfg /h off` will disable it and remove the hibernation file. Just be aware that this also disables Fast Startup; you can restore it later with `powercfg /h on`.
Reply to this answer
Add your answer
Answers are reviewed before publication.
MellowPine47: I’ll try that. I’ve heard of WizTree but wasn’t sure where to get it, so I’ll look for the official download.