Windows 10: C: drive progressively loses space

Hello,

My C: drive is progressively losing space the longer my computer is on. I am currently experiencing the worst example of it so far, which has prompted me to post this support request.

• Three hours ago, I turned my computer on. C: had 32GB of free space.
• Thirty minutes ago, I received a 'low disk space' warning. C: had been reduced to 0 bytes.
• I moved 3.6GB of personal files to an external drive. After checking in 'This PC', however, C: showed just 2.2GB of free space.
• At the time of writing, C: now has 1.3GB of space remaining. This will occasionally drop in increments of 50MB to 100MB. It will also sometimes stabilise for a short time before continuing to drop again.

The only programs I have used in the past three hours are Chrome, Firefox, Foxtel Go (a streaming application), and Media Player Classic. It does not seem to matter which applications I use - if I use any applications at all - for the space to continue disappearing. Malwarebytes has not discovered any threats, either, and nothing appears to be abnormal in Task Manager.

How can I figure out what is going on? Can anyone help, or suggest anything? This is incredibly frustrating and inconveniencing as you can imagine.

Thank you in advance.

Computer: Toshiba Satellite
Processor: Intel Core i7-4700MQ CPU @ 2.40GHz
System type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Operating system: Windows 10 Pro

:)

 

Losing space in my c drive

There is a good, and free 3rd party app called Treesize (from Jam software) which will tell you what is using the space.

 

C: drive keep losing space

You could always find out by asking your computer.

Go to Settings/System/Storage and click on your C Drive.

It will show you exactly what your Storage is being used for.





Now look at Temporary Files: Click that Garbage Can next to it.





Select and remove anything you don't want to keep.

And learn how to use Windows 10.

 

Hi Piglet. Welcome to the TenForums @Piglet

I would suggest that you install a tool like Everything from Voidtools.

Downloads - voidtools

With this tool you should be able to sort by size and at least identify the file names of the offending space stealers. You can also sort by date modified and you should be able to see these new files being creating.

Once you have some file names then members may have a better idea of what the next steps are.

 

Thank you for the welcome, and for the suggestion. I will give Everything a run and report back any findings.

Just to update my issue, too: The opposite to what I reported occurred today. C: displayed 550MB of free space after startup, which was down from 1.2GB before shutdown last night. A security prompt window appeared for an installation, signed by Microsoft, but I declined. After that, I noticed the space free space jumped rapidly until it reached 35GB. It remained stable for about 10 minutes, before again starting to drop in 50MB to 100MB increments.

 

Thanks to Everything, I have discovered the culprit is Apple's CloudKit.

At random intervals of between five and thirty minutes, it is generating files of roughly 1.5GB in size in AppData\Local\Apple Inc\CloudKit\iCloud Photos\MMCS. In the past two hours, it has claimed over 18GB of free space. This seems to be a common complaint among iCloud users, with some suggesting that each file is a sort of sync/backup of the iCloud photo library. My library is currently 1.2GB, and has nothing new to sync, however.

I have not found a permanent solution as of yet, but at least I know where to go when I need to free up space. Thank you for your help, Caledon Ken.

 

Hey your welcome.

Glad you identified culprit. I checked Internet...lots of reports, low on solutions.

Myself I don't use iCloud for photos, not a fan that if I delete on phone it deletes in cloud. I connect my device to computer and off load them. Then I can free up space on phone. I know Apple shrinks photos on phone to allow for more but their goal is to get you to buy more cloud storage.

Please post back if you find solution.

 

If you can identify the Windows Services that iCloud uses, you can set them to "Manual" in the Startup type textbox on the General tab in the properties window for each one in the Services.msc console. That way, they won't run until and unless you actually use iCloud. OTOH, you could turn them off except when you're using iCloud, then turn them off again when you don't need them anymore. For sufficient repeats, writing some PowerShell scripts or batch command files would probably also be advisable.
HTH,
--Ed--

PS: Nice diagnosis job. If I found an app doing that on one of my machines, I'd uninstall it if I didn't need to use it all the time, and no other reasonable substitutes were available.

 

Well, I noticed the same thing on my computer. So I decided to check on that through Disk Cleanup function. When you press Clean Up System Files, I noticed that I have around 30GB of installation files plus Windows Update files around 3GB. I could remove the installation files but then I wouldn't be able to revert it. Is it fine to remove the installation files then? Because I have an made an system image disk already, so do I really need them now?

 

If you have a good system image you should be fine. Now when I say good I should have probably used the word reliable.

Lots of good products out there, some free. Windows has an imager as well that some use.

I use Macrium, there is a free and paid for version. I found it to be very reliable.

 

What is the size of the Windows drive?

These are additional options to find what is consuming space or to temporarily free up space:

a) 3rd party software similar to this:
TreeSize Free - Quickly Scan Directory Sizes and Find Space Hogs

These are to temporarily free up space (there are pro and con to each of these):
b) delete the page file
How To Remove Pagefile.sys In Windows 10 - Technobezz
c) delete the hibernation file:
hyperfil.syshttps://www.techrepublic.com/blog/tr-dojo/delete-hiberfilsys-by-disabling-windows-hibernate-function/
d) delete/modify the cbs log
e) delete/modify the software distribution
e) other files: shadow copies, disk cleanup, etc.
How to Use Windows 10s Storage Settings to Free Hard Drive Space