If you've had your machine for a while, it's quite possible that after some time, the C drive, which is usually where your operating system, Windows, is stored, becomes filled up. This might happen even if you yourself are not adding any files to it, due to various cache and temporary files that might get created by Windows itself.  This may result in your computer feeling less responsive. Windows will do a good job in clearing up redundant, old temporary files majority of the time, but sometimes, you might need to give it some help.



This is where the Disk Clean-up utility comes in. It will help you delete any temporary files that Windows might have forgotten. 


To access the utility, follow the steps:


  1. Press Start menu, either on your screen (usually bottom left) or on your keyboard (usually depicted as the Windows logo).


  2. This will bring up the Start menu list. Now you can start typing "Disk Clean-up", which you can click on.


  3. When you launch it, the application will start loading. This might take a while, depending on your machine, drive speed, how much space left it has, and plenty of other factors.


  4. After it finishes up loading, it will pop up with the full application window. On here, please press "Clean up system files"

  5. When you click it, it will do another loading bar, calculating all of the files, and then bring up a similar looking window, but with a bit more options under "Files to delete"

  6. Each option has a tick box on the left side to mark it for deletion. We recommend ticking the following boxes:





    If you had done a Windows reset on your machine, your previous Windows version might still be stored on your C drive, even though it is no longer used. If that is the case, you might have an additional option, which we would recommend ticking as well, as it is usually the one taking up the most space:


  7. After you tick all the boxes, below you will see how much space you will gain. The number will depend on how many files there are. Usually the longer the machine has been in use, the larger the number will be, especially if you had a Previous Windows installation present.

  8. Press "OK" and you will get a pop up asking whether you are sure you want to delete the files, press "Delete Files"

  9. This will start the clean-up process, which will be shown as a progress bar. How long it takes depends on the number of files to clean up. Leave it alone for few minutes to do its job.


  10. When it's done, there won't be any confirmation window of any kind, but if the window just disappeared, that means it's finished. Now when you check your C drive space, it should have a bit more space.