You may be surprised to know that your Windows operating system and the applications that run on your computer generate temporary files. Show
This article is meant to help you understand what these temporary files are used for and how they may impact the performance of your computer and the capacity of your internal hard disk. 💯We will show you how to delete temporary files in Windows 11 as well as other versions of the OS, to help keep your machine running at peak efficiency. What are Temporary Files?In the Windows operating system, temporary files are created by the operating system itself and several applications running on your computer. These files often end up in the Windows Temp folder. Temp files on Windows 10 can be from running applications, backups of works, browsing history, or even system requirements. One way to free up disk space in Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP is to delete temporary files. Temp files are files that your operating system only needed to exist temporarily while in use, but are now just wasting space. Most temporary files are stored in the Windows Temp folder, the location of which differs from computer to computer. Manually cleaning this out in Windows usually takes less than a minute, but it could take longer depending on how large the collection of temporary files is. How to Remove Junk Files From Windows 11 How to Delete Temporary Files in WindowsFollow these simple steps to delete your temporary Windows files:
The next time you delete temporary files in Windows, feel free to hold down Shift as you delete the files. It's a trick that will skip over storing them in Recycle Bin, essentially "permanently" deleting them and saving you this last step. Using a Command Line CommandThe steps shown above are considered the normal way to delete temporary files, but you have to do it manually. If you'd rather, you can build your own mini-program that can delete these temp files automatically with a simple double-click/tap of a BAT file. You can do this using the rd (remove directory) Command Prompt command to delete the entire folder and all the subfolders. Type the following command into Notepad or some other text editor, and save it with the .BAT file extension:
The q parameter suppresses confirmation prompts to delete the files and folders, and s is for deleting all the subfolders and files in the temp folder. If the %temp% environment variable is for some reason not working, feel free to substitute in the actual folder location mentioned in Step 2 above, but make sure you type the correct folder path, and to be safe, surround the path in quotes like this (change the username, of course):
Other Types of Temporary Files in WindowsThe Windows Temp folder isn't the only place temporary files, and other no-longer-needed groups of files, are stored on Windows computers. The folder you found in Step 2 above is where you'll find some of the operating-system-created temporary files in Windows, but the C:\Windows\Temp\ folder contains a number of additional files that you no longer need to keep. Feel free to open that Temp folder and delete anything you find in there. The Settings app in Windows 10 has an entire section dedicated to deleting temporary files. Get there through Settings > System > Storage > Temporary files. Included there are things like delivery optimization files, Windows upgrade log files, temporary files left over by apps, and more. Choose what to remove, and then select Remove files. Those same, harder-to-find locations for temporary files are accessible in older versions of Windows, too, like Windows 7, via Disk Cleanup. This utility is included in all versions of Windows and can help remove the contents of some of those other temp folders for you automatically. You can open that in a Run dialog box (WIN+R) via the cleanmgr command. Check Your Browser CacheYour browser also keeps temporary files, usually in an attempt to speed up your browsing by loading cached versions of web pages when you revisit them. Review our guide on how to clear your browser's cache for help deleting these types of temporary files. Ctrl+Shift+Del (Windows) or Command+Shift+Delete (Mac) is usually the shortcut to that option. Handy Tools for Easy RemovalDedicated "system cleaners" like the free CCleaner program can make this, and similar jobs, really easy. Many free computer cleaner programs exist to choose from, too, including Wise Disk Cleaner. Check how much free space your hard drive has, both before and after you delete temporary files, to see how much space you recovered. FAQ
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