Are you running out of space on your hard drive? Friendly Computers found some handy tips for cleaning up your hard drive and freeing up space. Read more below…
Check Folders Manually
The best way to find and purge large files is to search for them. A good place to start is a manual search through your most commonly used folders: The Documents, Music, and Photos folders usually house most of the bigger files on your computer. The default view in Windows does not include a Size header, however, so right-click on the headers (Name, Date Modified, etc.) and select Size. Now, click the Size header to sort by file size. Use CTRL-click to select multiple files that you want to delete, and press Delete. (And remember to empty the recycle bin to remove them completely.)
Use Advanced Search
A better way to find disk-hogging files is Click Start | Computer, then press CTRL-F to perform an automatic search. Click the down arrow next to Advanced Search on the top right, then select the "is greater than" option next to the Size field.Type a large number in the field. For example, if you type 1,000,000 (that's about 1MB) you will only see files bigger than that, and can delete them right from the search window. Type a larger number to see fewer files should your results come back overly cluttered, and then remove the big culprits. Again, note that when you delete files they go to the Recycle Bin, which you then have to empty to get rid of the files forever.
Also, be sure to use the Search Tools button (it shows up in the results pane, right below the search pane), then click Search options, and check the options to include system files and ZIP/compressed files in the results. Click OK.
Find and Remove Pesky Temp Files
In Vista, there's a quick way to find the Temp folder and remove the files. Just go to Start, type Temp, and press Enter. Normally, you can just select all (CTRL-A) and delete these files. If you are concerned about keeping any temp files, you can make a backup by copying them to a USB drive first, then deleting. Temp files are the remains of partially downloaded files, detritus from installing software, or leftovers from a Web browser.Move Your Files
One last option for the files you really do need—but don't necessarily need to keep on your local C: drive—is to move them to a network drive or a USB key. This is a great way to de-clutter, because you can be a little more aggressive about removing files you think you may need, with the assurance that you are still retaining them.
