windows 11, can u clean out appdata folder safely?..

[geekygamer]

so i been suffering from diskspace on my ssd which has windows installed, currently sitting at 2gb space, i notice most of that space is taken up by the appdata folder and appcatch folder, is there a way i can clean out these folders? or remove unwanted junk safely on my ssd?

[Robchil]

probably not.. why don't you start with uninstalling unneeded functions in windows? 

.... 

 

like the games that are not realy in use anymore? 

 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Windows folder..

Do you really think its a good idea to delete a folder that shares a name with your os?
No, dont

 

 

and app data is where a bunch of appdata is stored. It shouldnt be deleted if you like things like youre settings being kept. Or any form of confiiguration, or game saves, those tend to go there....

[DigitalGoat]

36 minutes ago, geekygamer said:

so i been suffering from diskspace on my ssd which has windows installed, currently sitting at 2gb space, i notice most of that space is taken up by the appdata folder and windows folder, is there a way i can clean out these folders? or remove unwanted junk safely on my ssd?

Before jumping in and quite possibly wrecking your OS and apps/ games, go to tenforums or elevenforums and check the tutorial section for how to reclaim disk space. Other reputable forums exist with similar tutorials, maybe even this forum has such a section.

[GuiltySpark_]

Disk Cleanup, uninstalling applications normally, examining what's taking up space with TreeSize or similar program. The only things I can suggest maybe manually deleting from AppData is folders for applications you no longer have installed.

[aDoomGuy]

Deleting or moving AppData may cause corruption and kill all or any of your applications. Not recommended. I tried moving it to another drive back when I used a 120GB SSD, that broke a lot of stuff lol.

[geekygamer]

22 hours ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

Windows folder..

Do you really think its a good idea to delete a folder that shares a name with your os?
No, dont

 

 

and app data is where a bunch of appdata is stored. It shouldnt be deleted if you like things like youre settings being kept. Or any form of confiiguration, or game saves, those tend to go there....

sorry i didnt mean the windows, windows one the appcatch thers a folder in it with alot of space idk y

 

22 hours ago, Robchil said:

probably not.. why don't you start with uninstalling unneeded functions in windows? 

.... 

 

like the games that are not realy in use anymore? 

 

i dont have games or other file's on that drives windows is on, i tried deleteing a few of windows apps from the app store that get added to the drive

 

22 hours ago, aDoomGuy said:

Deleting or moving AppData may cause corruption and kill all or any of your applications. Not recommended. I tried moving it to another drive back when I used a 120GB SSD, that broke a lot of stuff lol.

i kno deleting it would do that but wasnt sure if moving the folder to a new drive would do the same, and if iu do so im sure it will defualt send more appdata to the windows drive, how do i go about changing the default path for that 

[aDoomGuy]

6 hours ago, geekygamer said:

i kno deleting it would do that but wasnt sure if moving the folder to a new drive would do the same, and if iu do so im sure it will defualt send more appdata to the windows drive, how do i go about changing the default path for that 

Once you have moved it, you must replace the original with a symbolic link to the new location. This will make windows think the data is still located on your C drive, while it actually is on your D drive.

Do note, this does work with AppData, but not with Program Files nor with the Windows folder, as it will break things like Windows Update.

To create the Directory Junction (Symbolic Link) do the following:

1. Open a cmd window with administrative privileges.
2. Navigate to c:\Users\username\appdata
3. execute the following command: mklink /d local d:\appdata\local
   replace d:\appdata\local with the actual path of where you moved the appdata to.

If you cannot move/delete the original copy, create a 2nd user, make it administrator, login with it, and retry the option. This should ensure that no files are in use.

 

Source: Can I move my AppData folder in Windows 10? - Super User

[geekygamer]

11 hours ago, aDoomGuy said:

Once you have moved it, you must replace the original with a symbolic link to the new location. This will make windows think the data is still located on your C drive, while it actually is on your D drive.

Do note, this does work with AppData, but not with Program Files nor with the Windows folder, as it will break things like Windows Update.

To create the Directory Junction (Symbolic Link) do the following:

1. Open a cmd window with administrative privileges.
2. Navigate to c:\Users\username\appdata
3. execute the following command: mklink /d local d:\appdata\local
   replace d:\appdata\local with the actual path of where you moved the appdata to.

If you cannot move/delete the original copy, create a 2nd user, make it administrator, login with it, and retry the option. This should ensure that no files are in use.

 

Source: Can I move my AppData folder in Windows 10? - Super User

thank you for that this will clear up so much space on the drive.

[LogicalDrm]

If you know what you are doing... AppData holds config files and other user per data. Well made software uninstallers empty it when you uninstall. I personally wouldn't recommend using symbolic links either. If you ever need to do system recovery, it breaks much more stuff than you realize.

 

Easiest way is to move all stable stuff to HDDs, and create separate folders for programs on HDD, then manually change install path when installing bigger files. In bigger picture, AppData is rather small issue. In my current Windows, which has been in use from 2017, its only 22Gb.

[aDoomGuy]

4 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

If you know what you are doing... AppData holds config files and other user per data. Well made software uninstallers empty it when you uninstall. I personally wouldn't recommend using symbolic links either. If you ever need to do system recovery, it breaks much more stuff than you realize.

 

Easiest way is to move all stable stuff to HDDs, and create separate folders for programs on HDD, then manually change install path when installing bigger files. In bigger picture, AppData is rather small issue. In my current Windows, which has been in use from 2017, its only 22Gb.

I tried to tell him what happened when I tried that. If he really wants to try... But yeah you are correct. It's opening a whole can of bad stuff.

[geekygamer]

On 4/12/2022 at 2:46 PM, aDoomGuy said:

I tried to tell him what happened when I tried that. If he really wants to try... But yeah you are correct. It's opening a whole can of bad stuff.

so safest way is just getting a bigger storage?

[aDoomGuy]

5 hours ago, geekygamer said:

so safest way is just getting a bigger storage?

Yep.

 

You can however perform steps to save some space that I forgot to mention:

 

Clean drive

Winkey+e and navigate to This PC

Right click C drive and open properties

Click Disk cleanup and then clean up system files

Choose all if you wish or you can just choose the largest entries.

Do this on a regular basis after each Windows Update.

 

Turn off hibernation

Search Start menu for CMD and choose run as administrator

Run command and press enter

Powercfg.exe /hibernate /off

Close the window by clicking X or type exit and press enter.

This will remove Hiberfil.sys which takes up 14GB on my machine

 

Move pagefile.sys to another SSD if you have one (HDD can be done too but may cause lower performance).

Search Start menu for control panel

Enter System and Security, then System (may open Settings app)

Enter advanced system settings

Click settings under performance then enter advanced tab

Click change under virtual memory and remove the checkbox for automatic for all drives at the top

Make no page file for C drive and system managed for the other drive.