Disk Cleanup

DO IT:  Weekly.

Talk about nifty – the Disk Cleanup Utility is a great little tool that Microsoft generously gave to us to automatically delete temporary files stored on your computer. 

While it’s not the “end all be all” of clean up tools, it is a great way to reclaim some of your valuable hard drive space.  There are other cleanup tools you can purchase, but this one really does a decent job.

Disk Cleanup can easily determine which files on your hard drive may no longer be needed and delete those files. In addition to freeing up potentially significant amounts of hard drive space, using Disk Cleanup on a regular basis can significantly improve system performance.

There are usually a couple of different ways to run Disk Cleanup on your computer, but we’re going to review the one that I think is easiest to remember. Let’s get started: 

Step 1: 
Click Start » All Programs » Accessories » System Tools » Disk Cleanup

Step 2:
If you have multiple hard drives on your PC, you're asked to choose which hard drive to analyze.  The Select Drive dialog box appears.  Use the drop down menu arrow to select the drive you want to clean.  If you have only one hard drive, Disk Cleanup begins running without taking you through this step.

Note:  If you have two drives, you will want to perform a Disk Cleanup on each drive.  So when you complete the steps for the first drive, return to Step 1 and complete the steps for the second drive. 

Step 3:
Once you have chosen the drive to Cleanup, Click OK.  Disk Cleanup will analyze the selected drive to calculate the amount of disk space that can be cleaned up.  How long this process takes depends on how much data is on your hard drive. 

Note:  Please be patient. Analyzing the drive can be a lengthy process depending on the drive size and contents.

Step 4:
Once it has completed its analysis, a dialog box appears with a complete list of file categories.  From this list, you will pick and choose what you want to clean. 

Note:  You may or may not have all the categories listed below – it all depends on each individual system.

A nice thing about the Disk Cleanup Utility is that instead of automatically starting with cleanup once the drive analysis is complete, it lets you review the categories of files that can be deleted. Click on any of the categories to display more information about that category in the Description section of the window.

If you're unsure if you want to delete the files in a category from the description, use the View Files button. A complete list of files scheduled for deletion will be displayed in Windows Explorer.

If you choose to save any of the files listed, drag and drop them to a safe location and leave the category selected. If all the files are to be saved, close the window and then remove the checkmark from the file category so it will not be included in the disk cleanup. Note the disk space at the right side of the dialog box (under the Files to Delete list) — it tells you how much of your disk drive is each item occupies.

Step 5:
After all the categories have been reviewed, click OK to begin the disk cleanup process.

 Cautions: 
When you tell Disk Cleanup to delete files, those files are deleted for good. They aren't moved to the Recycle Bin, as typically happens when you delete other files. Make sure you really want to delete the files that Disk Cleanup is proposing to delete.

Next Page