Did you know you can Delete temporary files in windows 10 to Free up some significant amount of Disk Space or optimize Windows System performance? Here this post we discuss what is temp files in windows PC, Why They created on your PC, and How To safely Delete Temporary Files in Windows 10.
What is the temp file in Windows 10 PC?
Temp files or temporary files are usually referred to as those files that apps store on your computer to hold information temporarily. However, on Windows 10 there are many other temporary file types, including those leftover files after updating the operating system, upgrade logs, error reporting, temporary Windows installation files, and more.
Typically, these files won’t cause any issues, but they can grow rapidly using valuable space on your hard drive, which can be the reason preventing you to install a new version of Windows 10 or it can be the reason that you’re running out of space.
How To safely Delete Temporary Files in Windows 10?
Most temporary files are stored in the Windows Temp folder, the location of which differs from computer to computer, and even user to user. And Cleaning these Temp files Is very easy which usually takes less than a minute. You can manually Delete These temporary files, or let a new Windows 10 feature take care of them, or get an app for that. Let’s Start to safely remove temp files.
Manually Delete Temporary files
Deleting temporary files in Windows does no harm. You’re just clearing out the trash that Windows downloaded, used, and doesn’t need anymore.
To find out and Delete Temporary files
- Press the Windows key + R to open the run dialog.
- Type or paste ‘%temp%’ into the box and hit Enter.
- This should take you to C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp.(the temp file store)
- Add your own username where you see Username if you want to navigate there manually.
- Now Press Ctrl + A to select all and hit Shift + Delete To clear them permanently.
- You may see a message that says File in use.
- Feel free to select Skip and let the process complete.
- If you see multiple warnings, check the box that says apply to all and hit Skip.
You can also navigate to C:\Windows\Temp and delete files there too for an extra bit of space. There is also a folder in C:\Program Files (x86)\Temp if you run 64-bit Windows which can also be cleared out.
Delete Temp Files at Every Startup in Windows 10
- You can Create A .bat file that Clears Temp files with Every Startup in Windows 10
- To do this press Windows + R, type %appdata%\microsoft\windows\start menu\programs\startup\ and hit enter key.
- Here right-click under the startup folder and create a new text document.
Now open the text document and enter the following text.
rd %temp% /s /q
md %temp%
- Save the file as any name with .bat extension. for example temp.bat
- Also, change the save as type “All files”
Here rd (remove directory) and %temp% is the Temporary file location. The “q” parameter suppresses confirmation prompts to delete the files and folders, and “s” is for deleting all the subfolders and files in the temp folder.
Click the SAVE button. These steps will generate a batch file and place it in the Startup folder.
Using Disk Cleanup Utility
If you find you need more space, then you Can Run the disk cleanup Utility to see what else you can safely get rid of.
- To do this type of disk cleanup on start menu search and hit the enter key.
- Select The System installation Drive (usually its C Drive) and click ok
- This will scan system errors, memory dump files, Temp Internet Files Etc.
- Also, you can perform advanced cleanup by click on Cleanup System Files.
- Now check all boxes over 20MB and Select OK to clean up these Temp files.
This should clean up most of the easily accessible files on your hard drive. If you recently upgraded Windows or have patched, cleaning out system files could save you several gigabytes of disk space. If you have more than one hard drive, repeat the above process for each one. It takes a little while but could free up a serious amount of disk space if you haven’t done it before.
Configure Storage Sense For Automatic process
If you use Windows 10 November Update there is a new setting called Storage sense which will do a lot of this for you. It was introduced in the last big update but passed a lot of people by. It is Microsoft’s attempt to make Windows a little more efficient. It will automatically delete the contents of the Temp files and Recycle bin after 30 days which will work for most users.
To Configure storage sense to automatically delete temp files
- Open Settings using the keyboard shortcut Windows + I,
- Click on System then click on Storage in the left menu.
- Toggle Storage Sense to on underneath the list of attached drives.
- Then click on the ‘Change how we free up space’ text link underneath.
Make sure both toggles are set to on as shown image below. From now on, Windows 10 will automatically clean out your Temp folder and the Recycle bin every 30 days.
Use Third-party App To Delete Temp Files
Also, you can use a free Third-party system optimizer like Ccleaner To clean Temp files with one click. It has a free and a premium version and does everything in this post and more. CCleaner has the advantage of cleaning all of your drives at once and taking only a few seconds to do it. There are other system cleaners out there but This is the Best We recommend.
These are some easy ways to safely Delete Temporary Files in Windows 10. I hope you find this post helpful to clean up Temporary files from Windows PC and optimize system performance. Have any queries, Suggestions Feel free to discuss them in the comments below.
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