How to Delete Residual Files on Windows 10

After uninstalling the program, there’re still some residual files in the computer occupying the computer space. To improve the computer performance, we will talk about 2 ways to delete residual files on Windows 10.

Tina

By Tina / Updated on July 9, 2025

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How can I delete residual files on my PC?

 

"Recently, my computer space is getting less and less, but except for some programs, I don't think I put too many files on the C drive. It is said that when there're too many residual files stored in the PC, the free space of hard drive will be occupied. How can I delete residual files on my PC?Is there any junk file cleaner worth recommending? Thank you for your help."

Residual files: When you uninstall various programs installed on your computer, the registry and file directories related to them are not deleted. These files, which contain caches, logs, error reports generated when using these programs, are collectively referred to as residual files.

If these residual files are not cleaned up on time, they will accumulate in the computer, which may eventually cause the low disk space or even computer crash. Therefore, in order to maintain good performance of the computer, you need to delete residual files on Windows PC regularly.

How to delete residual files on Windows 10 with Microsoft Total PC Cleaner

How to delete residual files on Windows PC? Apart from the common Windows built-in function Disk Cleanup and Storage Sense, you can also use Microsoft Total PC Cleaner to delete unwanted files.

Microsoft Total PC Cleaner is a computer space cleaning software that can be freely downloaded from the Microsoft Store and is compatible with Windows 10 and above version. You can use it to clean some junk files in your computer including system cache, mail cache, application cache to speed up your PC.

Step 1. Download and open Microsoft Total PC Cleaner, you'll be asked to confirm your system disk, please read the instructions carefully and click "Continue".

total pc cleaner continue

Step 2. Select the Local Disk C drive, and then click "Select Folder".

select folder

Step 3. In the small popped window, click "Start Scan" to scan all junk files from the PC.

start scaning

Step 4. All junk files will be listed and you can see how much space you can free up after deleting these files, click "Clean".

clean

Step 5. You'll be reminded that "Your disk has been cleaned" when this operation is completed, click "Done".

done

Deleting residual files on Windows 10 with a brilliant freeware

Admittedly, Microsoft Total PC Cleaner can remove some unwanted files that occupied the space of your computer, but it is more inclined to clean various caches and downloaded files. Therefore, if you want to dig out and delete residual files from Windows PC, your best choice is AOMEI Partition Assistant for Cleanup.

Unlike Microsoft Total PC Cleaner, the "PC Cleaner" function of this professional computer cleaner will deeply search and delete residual files on Windows 10. This intelligent tool can scan your computer for all kinds of junk files including residual files, and automatically selects files you might delete. After cleaning your computer, these junk files will be completely deleted.

Surprisingly, this software can not only do the work of cleaning up the computer disk but can also help you when the hard drive is not recognized in the computer. Furthermore, it can also create partition, format partition, change drive letter, etc.

Here, let's learn how to delete residual files from Windows 10.

AOMEI Partition Assistant for Cleanup

The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer

Tip: If you want to clean up large files over 16GB from the PC, you can turn to use the "Delete Large Files" function to directly deal with them. 

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant for Cleanup. Click the "Clean Junk Files" tab.

Clean Junk Files

Step 2. Click the "Scan Now" button to start the process of scanning junk files.

Scan Now

Step 3. After the scan process is finished. All system junk files (including recycle bin files, temporary files, log files, invalid shortcuts, and so on) and registry junk files (including DLL registry, system registry, and program registry) will be displayed.

Listed Junk Files

Step 4. You can also click the button behind to view the junk files details.

View Junk Files Details

Step 5. And, you can click the button behind to locate the file.

Locate Junk Files

Step 6. By default, the program will select some junk files to clean up, for example, temporary files, log files, and so on. You can also manually check to select more or uncheck to deselect fewer listed junk files. Or, click "Select All" to select all junk files to clean up if you need to clean up all.

After selecting junk files that are not needed anymore, you can click the "Clean Now"button to start the cleanup.

Clean Now

Step 7. The process of the cleanup might take time, and the selected files will be cleaned up. After the process is finished, you will get a cleanup completed window displaying how many files you have cleaned and not yet cleaned.

Clean Completed

Final words

In this article, we talked about the detailed steps to delete residual files on Windows 10 with Microsoft Total PC Cleaner and AOMEI Partition Assistant standard. Considering from many aspects, AOMEI Partition Assistant for Cleanup can solve your problems more efficiently.

If you want to know more about AOMEI Partition Assistant, you shouldn't miss the Pro Version, which has more functions like Allocate free space and Move application to another drive. 

Tina
Tina · Staff Editor
Tina is an English editor of AOMEI Technology. She has a positive attitude and full of energy. On her work, she always keeps thinking to figure out the solutions for users' problems, and writes the answers so that can help someone. In her daily life, she likes to sing, watch TV and sleep. She always being grateful and happy to all the things happened and all the people encountered.