SSD losing storage?

[Dekuuz]

According to Steam, all the games I've installed takes up 270GB and that's the only place I really install games. I also have Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, XD, Lightroom, Premiere, After Effects and Media Encoder but that only takes up at least 50-100GB. Looking at Windows storage settings, it says that I have 618/717GB on Apps & Features. Is it Windows 11 taking up this space? I don't really know how to clean space because all the programs I have installed I need. Thank you!

[manikyath]

use TreeSize or WizTree to scan your C: drive, chances are you'll bump into one or two unexpected storage hogs.

[TetraSky]

Temporary files, Hiberfile, Pagefile, Windows alone takes up nearly 50GB on a freshly formatted install.
Your documents, internet cache, Windows updates etc etc...

Everything you do on the computer, uses your storage.

 

What if you just open up the drive, select every folders, right click, property, see how much space is used up by them. Hidden system files make a big difference overall on the available storage.

For example, on the left there's the used space Windows says I'm using on my C drive. On the Right is how much space the stuff I can see and have access to, uses. A near 30GB difference right there. That's normal.

 

Spoiler

 

 

As for cleaning space... Open your start menu and start typing "disk cleanup". Open it and Select everything, then press ok

Spoiler

Once you've done that... Re-open Disk Cleanup, but this time, press that Clean Up System Files option. This will let you get rid of xGB of temporary files from Windows updates that didn't get deleted.

Spoiler

(see how it went from 113MB to 7.78GB of storage that can be gained back)