Eight strategies for spring cleaning your files and creating more storage space

There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to install an update on your PC or laptop and discovering that you’ve suddenly run out of disk space and the installation can’t complete. How did that happen?! There are a number of culprits to blame for this situation and this article will take you through some quick steps to identify and tackle the main offenders which are hogging your storage space.

1. Remove any unused programme files. Programme files are often very large in size and take up a lot of space. Learn how to remove unused programme files properly here.

2. Purge your Downloads folder of any files you’re not using - it’s amazing how the file sizes here mount up!

3. Look through your Outlook emails and delete any old emails which have large attachments. Arrange your emails by file size and you’ll be surprised how many emails you’ve received which have an enormous file size of several MBs. These can mount up to GBs! If you need the attachments, upload them into a cloud storage system such as Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive before deleting the email, so the file resides in the cloud rather than physically on your PC/laptop. Don’t forget to then empty your Deleted Items folder, otherwise, those large attachments will still be present.

4. Run a disk cleanup to get rid of any unnecessary temporary files. Discover how to run a disk cleanup here.

5. Empty your Recycle Bin folder.

6. Compress your Outlook .ost files, which can become huge! Especially if you are a virtual assistant like me and manage several different inboxes! Follow the guidance for compacting your Outlook data files here.

7. If you are using OneDrive or Dropbox, check that you use the syncing option which puts an image of the document on your computer, as opposed to the actual file itself. That way, when you need a document, you simply click on it to download a local copy back to your PC/laptop. This saves a lot of space, particularly if you have documents on file which you don’t open frequently. To activate this on OneDrive, simply right-click on OneDrive in your file system and select ‘Free up space’, and for Dropbox, right-click and select ‘Smart Sync’.

8. If, after these steps, you still have insufficient disk space, download TreeSize which is a great piece of free software that allows you to quickly identify and remove the remaining files which are gobbling up your disk space. A word of caution, however - only delete files that you are 100% certain aren’t essential to your system. The Windows system files should be left alone as your PC or laptop won’t work properly without them! And don’t forget to empty your Recycle Bin if you are certain that those files can be permanently deleted.