Shrink Volume with Windows Disk Management - Windows 10, 8, 7

Why do you need shrink volume?

Many people face the problem of imbalanced allocation of volumes which may cause troubles like computer crash, disk failure and so on. Especially the lack of system space will make a computer work very slowly even leading to data loss. In such situation, if there’s enough free space on one volume, you’re capable to create a new volume through shrinking.

How to shrink volume with Disk Management

Because "Extend Volume" and "Shrink Volume" these two features are added to Disk Management since the appearance of Windows 7, you can shrink volumes through this built-in tool. Following steps will tell you how to do it in Windows 7/8/10.

Step 1: Open disk management.

Step 2: Right click the volume you want to shrink (here is D) →Shrink Volume.

Step 3: Decide the amount of space to shrink.

Step 4: After confirmation, a new unallocated space will appear after D drive.

It’s easy to create a new partition with this unallocated space. While you will notice if you want to extend C or E drive now, the option "Extend Volume" is greyed out. Anyway, Disk Management has a great limitation in resizing partitions. 1st, there must be an unallocated space on the same disk when extending a volume. 2nd, the unallocated space must be adjacent to that volume and on its right side. 3rd, you can not shrink a volume beyond the point where any unmovable files are located.4th, "Shrink Volume" only makes the unallocated space locate behind the volume you shrink. Thus, it seems that you need hire a third-party software for help.

Resize partition with AOMEI Partition Assistant

AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition is a free disk management software which comes with a lot of powerful functions that enables you to control hard disks and partitions easily. It breaks the limitations mentioned above and resizing partition without data loss for AOMEI is just like a piece of cake. Apart from Windows 7/8/10, Windows XP, Vista are also supported. Let’s see how to deal with it.

Step 1: Download, install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant.

Step 2: Right click the volume you want to shrink → Resize Partition.

Step 3: Drag the border (either left/right side). You can move partition.

Step 4: Click "OK" and you’ll view changes on the main interface. Then click Apply to execute.

Tips: Before execution, it’s possible to extend other partitions by using resize or merge partitions even the unallocated space is not near them. Please pay attention that the operation will be performed under PreOS Mode and your computer will reboot when shrinking system partition or shrinking a partition where applications are running.