From time to time, you may find yourself in a situation where your computer is full of files you no longer need and you need to free up some space. You’ve probably already searched for how to free up space on your PC and found all kinds of solutions, whether it’s a third-party app or using the Disk Cleanup tool built into Windows 11 (and earlier).
But the thing is, you don’t need to do all of this yourself. There is a feature called Storage sense on Windows 11 that can automatically clean your disk whenever necessary so that you don’t run out of space for no reason. And it’s a better feature than you think.
Clean temporary files if necessary
Never run out of space again
There are a few aspects of the meaning of storage worth talking about, but the most central part is deleting your temporary files. This includes things like tiles, Windows Update cached files, and other temporary files that can sometimes be used to speed up loading, but may no longer be needed. The type of files you would manually delete with Disk Cleanup.
Storage sense will run a cleanup task for these files whenever you run out of space, although you can also configure this task to run more regularly, such as weekly or monthly. There should be no reason to do this more than once a month. The whole point of cached files is to make certain things faster, so if you constantly delete them you may end up with a worse experience without much benefit in return.
There is, however, a separate setting in the storage direction for Recycle Bin, so it can run on a different schedule, and that makes sense. When you delete a file, it almost always goes to the Trash, and these files can take up a lot of space relatively quickly. And you probably don’t give it much thought once a file has been deleted since it’s out of your sight, but it can make a big difference. Files in the Trash are automatically deleted after 30 days by default, but you can probably go lower without it making much of a difference. Unless you tend to accidentally delete files and forget about them, there shouldn’t be anything you really need.
You need to deep clean your Windows PC every year to keep it running smoothly. Here’s how to do it.
Keep it (c)lean
Take care of old downloads
Do you even remember what they are?
If you’re like me, you’ve probably used your Downloads folder as a catch-all that never really gets cleaned out. Installers and downloaded documents that you only need once accumulate and can take up tens of gigabytes after a few months, even if you no longer use these files. These aren’t really “temporary files” as Windows defines that term, but for many of them, they’re things we’ve downloaded and used once, then never again.
Fortunately, a sense of storage also comes in handy here. Although it’s off by default, you can set it to automatically delete files from your Downloads folder if you haven’t used them in a while. Here you can choose to wait up to 60 days, and that’s probably for the best. It’s not like the trash where you already assume that what’s in it is worthless; The Downloads folder may still contain important content, so it’s good to have a buffer so you don’t lose important files.
But in reality, this is probably the most important aspect of all of this, because it’s easy to leave the Downloads folder abandoned and accumulating junk. You’ll probably save a lot of space this way, although it will require you to pay more attention to files that you may need to keep for longer.
I finally fixed my messy downloads folder with an automated system and it’s a game changer
Jarvis, organize my files
It even manages your cloud files
Well, your local copies, at least
One of the coolest features of Windows 11 is the fact that it can integrate cloud storage services into its user interface, so you can browse your cloud files as if they were on your PC, but they don’t take up space until you try to open them, when they are downloaded. It works out of the box with OneDrive, but other similar clients can support it as well, and it even includes a self-hosted Nextcloud instance.
There is only one small problem with this approach: once downloaded, files may be stored locally indefinitely until you decide to delete them, and even then you need to be careful because the usual action of “delete” will also delete them from your cloud. There is a separate action to delete a local copy of a cloud file.
But this too can be automated with Storage sense. In fact, this is the default behavior. If one of your cloud files has a local copy and you haven’t used it in 30 days, the local copy may be automatically deleted, and of course you can also change this to make this happen faster (or slower, if you prefer). And you also have additional control over this, because if there is a file that you want to keep indefinitely, you can use File Explorer and use the option called Always stay on this devicewhich will exempt the file from automatic cleaning performed by Storage sense.
Depending on the types of files you’re recovering from the cloud, this can also save you a lot of space, and I recommend checking the default time frame to see if you want them deleted faster.
Combining Storage Sense with OneDrive Files On‑Demand is the only storage saving tip you’re not using
It’s a perfect solution
Don’t worry about storage anymore
Storage issues are far from uncommon, and with current hard drive prices, buying more isn’t really a feasible solution for everyone. Being proactive about your storage usage is more important than ever, and storage acumen plays a very important role here. Although it’s enabled by default, it’s a good idea to dive into the Settings app and make sure you’re optimizing your storage as much as possible.