10 ways to reclaim hard disk space in Windows

Low disk space can be a great problem not just for older computers with less hard-disk space but also for new ones. A lot of photos, music files, software, videos, music, games fill even my 256 GB hard-disk in no time. Many files occupying the precious disk space are unnecessary ones. To find them manually and deleting is a big headache. I have listed 10 ways to free-up hard disk in Windows:

1)With Built-in windows tools(Disk cleanup) : Disk cleanup scans for unnecessary/temporary files in your computer and removes them. Run the software regularly and you can free-up a lot of hard disk space.

2) Remove all trial software that came pre-installed with your new PC: If you have bought a new PC, a lot of trial software are installed by the manufacturer. They stay in the hard drive even after they expire. PC Decrapifier helps you to remove all the pre-installed trial software.

3) Uninstall programs in Bulk: Selecting individual installed software and uninstalling it with in-built Windows’ add/remove software can be time-consuming. Absolute uninstaller helps you to select the program to uninstall and removes them in bulk.

4) Find and remove Setup files : After you have downloaded or copied the setup file and installed it, you forget to delete the installation file. Finding them and deleting can help you a lot in reclaiming hard disk space. I couldn’t find such software but here’s a good trick. Search for files with extension (*.exe). Then sort the found list by size. Setup files are generally of larger size and are on top. Then delete manually.

5) Install CCleaner: CCleaner is a cool tool to clean your windows PC. It removes unused files from your system as well as traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. Unlike most of other cleanup tools, CCleaner is spyware or Adware free.

6) Find and remove duplicate Files: You might have created duplicate copies of files and forget to delete them. These files occupy space in your hard-drive and if they are large files, the condition worsens. Doublekiller is a free tool that scans for duplicate files and removes them.

7) Find and remove duplicate photos: There can be duplicated photos in your computer. Doublekiller may not find duplicate photos in some cases. Duplicate photo finder is a cool tool which scans for duplicate photos in your PC and removes them.

8 ) Remove identical music files / songs : A tool named Similarity scans for duplicate music files and songs and removes them from you hard-disk.

9) Remove browser’s history, temporary files and other unwanted data: Your browser may have saved a lot of unwanted data on your hard disk. You can manually delete your browsing history or use the tool named Click and Clean which is available for IE, Firefox and Google Chrome. It also helps you in more extensive cleaning using external tools like CCleaner or Wise Disk Cleaner.

10) Run an anti-virus scan: Low disk space may be due to viruses / spywares. Apart from other advantages, installing and updating anti-virus software and scanning your computer regularly can help you to reclaim disk space.