How to Free Up Space in Local Disk C on Windows 10

Help! My C drive became full for no reason

Why need to free up space on C drive?

C drive is the disk where the Windows system is installed. When it is full, you may receive a low disk space warning. If you don't clean it up in time, it may lead to computer slowdown, computer freeze or even a blue screen problem.

Therefore, it is very necessary to understand and master how to free up space in local disk C on Windows 10.

Ways to free up disk space on Windows 10

Viruses, the default download path, a large number of junk files may be the reasons for the lack of space on the C drive. Next, we will share 4 ways to clean C drive on Windows 10.

│Method 1. Disable hibernate

Hibernation mode can store the current computer state, allowing you to instantly restore your PC to where you left it. However, the hibernation mode will generate many hibernation files that take up more computer space, so we can disable hibernation to free up space on C drive.

Step 1. Press "Windows" key and type "cmd", then hit "Run as administrator" to open CMD.

Step 2. Type "powercfg -h off" and press "Enter" to disable hibernation mode.

│Method 2. Delete Windows update files

Not knowing the proper way to delete Windows upgrade files, many Windows users automatically ignore them. Windows upgrade files that have not been cleaned up in time will accumulate on the C drive, taking up a lot of space.

Step 1. Enter Windows Settings, click "System", "Power & Sleep" and "Additional Power Settings" in turn.

Step 2. Click "Temporary Files", then tick "Windows Update Cleanup" and click "Remove files".

│Method 3. Rebuild the search indexer

Since the Windows search database is updated from time to time, this can store a lot of unnecessary files. Therefore, cleaning and rebuilding the search database may free up space on the C drive to a certain extent.

Step 1. Open "Settings", click "Search" and "Searching Windows" in order. Click the "Advanced Search Indexer Settings" option under the "More Search Indexer Settings".

Step 2. In the popup, click the "Advanced" button. Then click the "Index Settings" tab and "Rebuild" button in turn.

A better way to fully free up space on C drive

Although the above methods can clean up the C drive to a certain extent, they cannot completely clean it up. If you want to completely clean up the C drive and speed up your PC, you can use AOMEI Partition Assistant for Cleanup for free.

The PC Cleaner function can scan your computer, find and completely delete all junk files in your computer, even system and registry junk files. You can free up space on the C drive in a short time.

You can see how to free up space in local disk C on Windows 10 with it.

AOMEI Partition Assistant for Cleanup

The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer

Free Download
Windows PCs and Servers

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

│Extension: Delete large files to deeply clean up PC

If you want to clean your computer on a deeper level, you can turn to use the "Delete Large Files" feature to find all large files, distinguishing which ones are safe to delete.

Note: When the C drive is full and you don’t want to uninstall the program, you can also use "APP Mover" to migrate some apps to another drive.

AOMEI Partition Assistant for Cleanup

The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer

Free Download
Windows PCs and Servers

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

Step 2. You can either click "Scan System Drive" to start the scan of your system C: drive. Or, click "Custom Scan" to manually select paths to be scanned. (Here, we take the "Custom Scan" as an example.)

Step 3. After clicking "Custom Scan", all local and external drives on your PC and the common Desktop, Documents, and Downloads paths will be displayed. You can manually select paths to be scanned. Once necessary paths are added, you can click the "Scan Now" button to start the scan process.

Step 4. The scan process might take time. After the scan is complete, all large files found will be listed.

Step 5. You can also check the large files and click the button behind to locate them.

Step 6. Tick the files you want to delete, and then click the "Clean Now" button to start the deletion.

Step 7. The deletion might take time. After the process is finished, the selected files will be deleted, and you will get a cleaning completed window displaying how much data you deleted in total. 

Step 5. Just for a while, the large files will be deleted successfully, and then you will see a warm notification suggesting you clean up your PC regularly.

Verdict

How to free up space in local disk C on Windows 10? In this page, We have shared 4 ways to free up space on C drive. In contrast, we recommend AOMEI Partition Assistant more.

Besides the mentioned features, AOMEI can also allocate free space, migrate OS to SSD, clone the whole disk, etc.