No matter how big your Hard Disk is, one day will definitely come when it’ll be completely full. And that day you’ll be dying to get some free space. There’s an option of buying another Hard Disk but many people can’t due to their own personal or financial reasons.

So I’m listing some effective ways by which you can free up some space for your important files or softwares by removing unwanted and unimportant files.

• Disk Cleanup:

  First step of cleaning space is “Disk Cleanup”. Windows provide us a built-in tool to delete the temporary files and unimportant data from the hard disk. You can access this tool by using any of the way below:
  – Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Cleanup
  or
  – Got to “My Computer”, then right click on the Hard Drive you want free space from and click on “Properties”. You’ll see a window showing General properties by default. Click on “Disk Cleanup” button.
  Now as you have accessed the Disk Cleanup tool, you’ll see the “Disk Cleanup” window scanning the hard drive. You can select the type of files you want to delete under “Files to delete:” option. Now click on “OK” and the cleaning process will start.
  If the amount of space you gained is not enough for you, you can also clean up System Files. For that, click on “Clean up system files” button. A new tab will open showing two options to cleanup space. First is “Programs and Features” and second is “System Restore and Shadow Copies”. Click on “Clean up” button under second option of System Restore. This will remove all but the most recent restore point.
  

• Disk Defragmentation:

  “Disk Defragmentation” is something which makes your computer fast more efficient. It reduces the amount of fragmentation in file systems. You can access this tool from Start>All Programs>Accessories> System Tools>Disk Defragmentation. Now select the hard drive you want to defragment and click on “Defragment disk”. Defragmentation will start.

• Delete Temporary Files:

  Using “Disk Cleanup” is good to remove unnecessary files, but it does not delete the temporary files of other programs. A browser’s caches can consume large space of your hard disk, which Disc Cleaner can’t delete.  So for such operations, use “CCleaner”.
  You can download CCleaner from here. Install and launch the tool and then click on “Run Cleaner”. The CCleaner will clean all the temporary and junk files including the temporary files of any third party application.
  

• Uninstall useless and space occupying Software and Applications:

  It will be really effective to remove the useless applications. Some programs consume less space and some consume more. You can see a list of programs and applications of your computer and their size details too from “Program and Features” tool. You can find this tool in Control Panel.
  But this list is not always accurate. Some programs may not show the exact size they actually use and in some cases, no size information at all. So in such case, it’s better to use third party software. I’m talking about a hard disk analysis programs, which scans all your hard disk and show you exactly that which folders and files using the more space. Those type of files too which Programs and Features can’t show.
  There are many hard disk analysis tools available on the internet like SpaceSniffer, DiskSavvy, WinDirStat, TreeSize Free, Disktective etc. But in this guide I’ll be showing you about the tool I use i.e. “WiniDirstat”.
  You can download WinDirStat from its official website. Install and launch the tool and then scan the hard drive. After complete scanning, you’ll see list of different files and folders with their exact details including the size. Now you can delete all the useless data and programs which you don’t use. Keep in mind that you don’t delete any important file.
  

• Delete Duplicate Data:

  There’s a possibility that you might have some duplicate files and folders in your hard disk. You can find such duplicate files by using any duplicate file finder tool. There are many tools available on the internet but once again I’ll showing you about the tool I use i.e. “dupeGuru”.
  You can download dupeGuru from Hardcoded Software. This tool is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit windows users.  Install and launch the application and then scan the hard drive. After complete scanning, you’ll see a list of all duplicate files. Now you can delete those files keeping only one of the two duplicate file.

• Leave Less Drive Space for System Restore:

  System Restore keeps the previous copies of files and restore points from which your computer restore from. But this feature may not be that important for you. If so, then you can reduce the amount of drive space usable for system restore.
  Unlike Windows Vista where you’ll need to use a command line which is quite difficult, Windows 7 provides a very easy way of managing the drive space for system restore.For Windows 7 users:Right click on “My Computer” and select “Properties”. Now a System Panel will appear where you’ll have to click on “System Protection” on the left side.

  A “System Properties” window will appear with “System Protection” tab by default. Now click on the hard drive you want to manage disk space of and then click on the “Configure” button.
  Now you’ll see another window where you can manage “Restore Settings” and “Disk Space Usage”. You can “Turn off the system protection” or change to “Only restore previous versions of files”. Using the slider in font off “Max Usage:” you can reduce the drive space usable for system restore. You’ll also see a “Delete” button which is to delete all restore points, but we’ve already done it “Disk Cleanup”.
  For Windows Vista users: You need to open Command Prompt in administrator mode. Click on “Start” and type “cmd” in search bar. Open the Command Prompt “cmd” listed in search results. Right click on Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator. Your Command Prompt may already be running as Administrator by default.
  Now Type: vssadmin list shadowstorage
  You’ll get all the information about how much space system restore is using. Now to change the disk space for system restore,
  Type: vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /Maxsize=2GB
  In the above command, you can change the “For” and “On” drives and “Maxsize” accordingly.

I hope these ways will definitely help you to gain some free space on your hard disk. In case of any problem, comments are open.