Automatically delete temporary system and application files using Windows 10 Storage Sense. Let’s review how to enable and configure this new feature of Windows.
Windows 10 has a bad habit of keeping old temporary files lying around which don’t do anything other than take up hard drive space. A new feature in Windows 10 called Storage Sense helps solve this issue by automatically deleting temporary files and content from your recycle bin. It’s not enabled by default so let’s jump in and review hot to enable and configure it to keep your hard drive nice and clean.
How to enable Storage Sense on Windows 10
Start off by going to Settings > System > Storage, or use Windows keyboard shortcut Windows key+Q and type: storage. The Storage Sense option is hard to miss, just flip the toggle switch to enable it.
To customize Storage Sense, just click the text Change how we free up space.
In most cases, the default settings are perfect, however, if you have a bad habit of never deleting files in your Downloads Folder (like me), you might tick that box to have Windows automatically delete the files in your downloads folder if they haven’t been changed for 30 days. For most of us, downloads are kept for a reason so it’s no wonder this isn’t set by default.
That said, if you prefer to no wait for the entire 30 days, just click the Clean Now button to have windows clean free up space using the settings you’ve configured on the page.
The Windows 10 OS continues to get stronger and stronger with each Windows Update. The Windows 10 Storage Sense feature is a good example of this. Previously, disk cleanup was fairly manual, however, for me, it’s hard to beat automatic – just set it and forget it.
If you’ve cleaned up your drive and still need more room, consider clearing your browser cache or using another tool like CCleaner to free up temporary files from other applications installed on your system.