How to Delete App Backup Files in Windows 10?

Do you know how to delete app backup files in Windows 10 PC to release more free space on your PC? In this post, you’ll learn some ideas to clean app backup files.

Lucas

By Lucas / Updated on May 12, 2023

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What are App backup files?

Some users find that though they’ve installed new programs on other locations, the C drive will still be in the space crisis caused by the accumulation of numerous program files. How does this happen? What files will still be stored on the C drive?

The answer is the App backup files and relevant data files. When you apply an update to an existing program on your PC, the prior version of the software is stored on the disk. These prior versions of the program accumulate and consume hard drive space over time, leaving you wondering why your disk is running out of space.

In addition, all computer programs generate temporary files and cache files in order to function correctly and on demand by the user. All of these files are kept on a specific hard drive, where they continue to expand in size and consume available space.

How to delete app backup files in Windows 10/11?

Since too many app backup files will occupy too much free space on your disk, we will provide you with a comprehensive tutorial that includes some options for deleting app backup files in Windows 10. You may quickly erase all of the app backup files to save up disk space, and there are some other tricks to help you release more available space on your system drive.

Method 1. Delete app backup files manually

Step 1. Press “Win”+ “R” keys on your keyboard to open the Run dialog.

Step 2. Type %localappdata% in the search bar, and click “OK”.

localappdata

Step 3. Find the “Temp” folder, and open it.

Step 4. Select all files and delete them.

Local temp

These files are only cache files, so it’s safe to remove them. Most apps have their directory files and backup files in AppData\Local\Packages. You can remove the target large backup files in this path, but some files might cause the resetting settings to the default parameters while others might not work properly.

Method 2. Use Disk Cleanup to clear app backup files

Step 1. Press Windows Key + S and enter disk cleanup. Select Disk Cleanup from the list of results.

Step 2. Select the C drive and click OK. Wait while the application scans your PC.

Step 3. Make sure to check Temporary files and then click on OK. If you want, you can select other file types.

Disk Cleanup C drive

Method 3. Use file history to delete backup files

This way can safely delete outdated files of apps and your system, you don’t need to manually recognize those files.

Step 1. Open “Control Panel”, and “file history” in the search box and select them. Then, in the File History window, click “Advanced settings”.

Advanced settings

Step 2. Select “Clean up versions”. You can delete the app backups on any folder right from older than 1 month to older than 2 years.

Clean old version files

Step 3. Select the option and press the “Clean up” button.

How do you deep clean outdated files in Windows?

With the above 3 ways, you can clean unwanted files from Windows 10. In fact, we suggest users regularly clear junk files to keep the computer and disks in a nice status. But honestly, to completely clean all junk files manually is difficult because you may delete important files and make a big mistake to crash your system. Therefore, here we recommend you use a reliable PC cleaner—AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.

It is a free disk and partition manager for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP system. The “PC Cleaner” function can deeply scan the system and the disks to filter all useless data files and list them to show users and users can choose to remove them with one click.

Download FreewareWin 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP
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Step 1. Click "Free up" and "PC Cleaner" in turn.

PC Cleaner

Step 2. Click "Start Scan" in the new pop-up window to scan the computer for junk files.

Star scan

Step 3. After starting the scan, please wait for a while until the progress bar is loaded.

Scanning

Step 4. Some junk files will be automatically selected, you can directly click "Clean All" to delete them. Or, you can tick “Select all” to delete all kinds of junk files.

After scanning

Step 5. When you see a correct symbol displayed in the interface, you can click "Back" to leave the function.

Finished

Further reading: How to extend drive space?

If you want to release more drive space on your PC, you can upgrade to the Professional Edition of this tool to try the “App Mover” function to move some installed apps to another location.

Choose apps

Ending lines

This post shows how to delete app backup files in Windows 10, if you need, you can also delete Windows 10 system backup files. AOMEI Partition Assistant can help you easily and securely fix disk space insufficiency issue. You can also use this tool to clone disk and system only, convert disk to MBR/GPT without deleting partitions, convert file systems between NTFS and FAT32 without formatting, etc.

By the way, this tool also has the Server Edition, if you’re using Windows Server 2022/2019/2016/2012(R2)/2008(R2)/2003 system, you can choose this edition to manage your computer.

Lucas
Lucas · Staff Editor
I prefer peaceful and quiet life during vacation,but sometimes I watch football match if my favorite club performs brilliantly in that season. And I love reading, painting and calligraphy, thus I send my friends festival handwriting cards every year.