Windows 10: Hard Drive Randomly Filling Up

My 256 GB hard drive has zero space left (programs now shutting down, etc.). I deleted or moved all duplicate files ; documents and applications only account for about 50 GB. When I free up a few GB, it rapidly fills up again. This is not a defrag issue; this is something eating up my hard drive.

Right now, those files are lurking in my Intel ProSet/ wireless software. The Apps heading under System Settings says it contains 105 GB which is absurd. How do I stop this? When I stop one app or file, another grows elsewhere.

In the beginning, I thought it was a synchronization problem. I think it started when I activated Dropbox sync. I found another Dropbox file in my backup, so I thought maybe it was a continuous feedback loop where Desktop copied Backup, copied Desktop, copied Backup. But I shut off Dropbox and it still continues.

Any thoughts? BTW, I have a Lenovo Thinkpad S1 yoga with 8GB RAM, and a 256 GB SSD hard drive.

:)

 

C: Hard Drive Randomly Filled Up

There are different situations would cause C: hard drive randomly filled up:

1. Virus and malware may keep generating files to fill your system drive.

2. You may have saved large files to C: drive that you are not aware of. For example, the default download folder is located in C: drive.

3. Pages files, previous Windows installation, temporary files, and other system files may have taken up the space of your system partition.

4. There are too many large programs installed on C: drive.

There might be more reasons behind C: drive mysteriously full. You can use one or more of the methods below to clean up C: drive space in Windows 10/8/7.

1. Scan your computer for unwanted software or virus

2. Run Disk Cleanup

3. Delete hibernate file

4. Uninstall the large applications.

There are more detailed methods for
C drive is full without reason. You may find the answer

 

C: Hard Drive Randomly Filled Up

When I turned on my laptop today, I saw that I had 0 GB free of 297 GB. This happened to me before a few days ago but I fixed it somehow and don't remember what I did. So far, I deleted some things and now have 12.1 GB. How can I get rid of the rest?

Moved from: [Windows / Windows 10 / Devices & drivers]

 

Download: TreeSize Portable Free. and run. It should give you some idea of what's eating up the space.

 

It could be a buggy program causing it. You may need to narrow it down. Also are backups or updates running?

 

So much information!! All the answers!! Now I need to figure out the questions...
Do I just check for duplicates? Temp files? Updates that occur every day and take up space? What about zipped files? Or weird extensions? There is so much garbage here. I guess I have to check every folder to eliminate niggling little files that add up?
How do I separate the wheat from the chaff? When NOT to delete? I think I've already blundered around and reconfigured in some places I shouldn't have. I turned off my Restore function. Should I turn it back on?
Thank you, Topgun. Once I figure this out, I'm sure my problems will be resolved.

 

Start with the biggest space consumers. You can click on individual files to find out the percentage of space each is taking up.

Usually, more than 90% of the space is taken up by a few folders and files. It's like a distribution of wealth in America.