Windows 10: How to use compact.exe to free up disk space on Windows

Microsoft introduced new options for the command line tool compact.exe in the Windows 10 operating system. It allows users to compress folders on the system using new algorithms to free up disk space.

Unlike many other compression solutions, compact promises to have little impact on performance when the files need to be loaded by the system. Files are compressed without changing the file extension or location. Decompression happens during runtime, and most modern systems should not break a sweat doing so. The tool is included in Windows 11 as well.

Compact.exe compresses files and folders on Windows without changing filenames or making other modifications to the files. Depending on the type of files, compression may save Gigabytes of disk space or very little. Files that are compressed already, e.g., JPG image files, will show little gains when compress is run on them. Uncompressed files on the other hand may show large gains. You can check out this GitHub page, which lists hundreds of games and programs, and the savings when using compress.exe on them.

A few applications and games may react badly to compression. If that is the case, uncompressing will resolve the issue.

Tip: if you prefer a graphical user interface, check out CompactGUI. Windows includes an option to compress the entire drive. Right-click on any drive in explorer and select Properties to open the option. You find "Compress this drive to save disk space" under General in the properties window.

Using compact.exe on Windows




You may run the program from any command prompt window. Open a new command prompt window, e.g., by using Windows-R to open the run box, typing cmd.exe and hitting the Enter-key on the keyboard.

Running compact on its own displays the compression status of all folders and files of the current directory.

The command line tool support several parameters, some of which may be confusing at first.

The core commands compact.exe /c and compact.exe /u mark the current or specified directories so that future changes to the folder, e.g., modified files or newly added files, are compressed or uncompressed.

It is necessary to supply the /s parameter to the command to perform the selected operation on all files in the specified directory and all of its subdirectories.

By default, the current directory is used, but a directory may be supplied to perform the operation on a different directory instead. To do that, add path information to the command.

The command compact.exe /c /s:c:\users\test\downloads\ runs the compression on the downloads directory.

You may specify the compression algorithm by supplying the /EXE parameter. The parameter /EXE:XPRESS8K uses that algorithm. The following algorithms are supported:

• XPRESS4K (fastest and default value)
• XPRESS8K
• XPRESS16K
• LZX (most compact)

The default algorithm is designed to make the performance impact as minimal as possible, even on older systems. Most devices should not have issues using the 8k or even 16k algorithm instead.

Other useful parameters of compact.exe:

• /f forces the compression or uncompression. Already compressed or uncompressed files are skipped. Should be used if the process was interrupted, e.g., by a crash.
• /i ignores errors and continues the operation without stopping.
• /? displays help information.

Closing Words


Large program and game folders, and folders with large uncompressed files, benefit the most from the compression. Gigabytes of disk space may be recovered with the help of the command. Most Windows users may use the CompactGUI program instead, as it is easier to use and handle.

Now You: have you used compact.exe in the past?

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Low Disk Space error

Hi,

I suggest you to delete the unwanted applications or games installed on the device and also perform a Disk Cleanup.

In order to delete the games or applications, which has been downloaded from the Windows Store you need to right click on the game and select
Uninstall option from the Start menu.

If the games that you are downloaded are .exe or the applications which are not downloaded from the Windows Store, you may try deleting it from the Control panel.

To do so, please follow the below steps.

• Right Click on Start Menu.
• Open Control Panel.
• Click Programs.
• Click Programs and Features.
  
• Click on the programs that you would like to uninstall.

I suggest you to try the steps in the following article to free up space and check if it helps.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows-10/free-up-drive-space

Also, refer to the Wiki Article created by
Andre Da Costa from the below link:

How to free up disk space in Windows

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...-windows/2458cc31-bd19-482f-ace5-7e3bd9da8098

Hope it helps. Revert to us with the results, will be glad to assist you.

Thank you.

 

Compacting virtual hard disks

Please do not take this wrong, I just have to say that your process involves awfully lot unnecessary work!

To start with, a dynamically expanding VHD can only grow. It never shrinks, that's not what Compact Disk means. Each checkpoint, even when later removed makes VHD bigger, and so on.

My workflow when I want to free unnecessary space used by my dynamical VHDs:

• Disk clean-up
• Create Macrium image of my VM
• Shut down VM
• Replace existing VHD with new dynamically expanding one in VM settings
• Restore Macrium image to new VHD

Can't understand why you mount VHD in host, can't understand why to save old VHD as .bak when Macrium Image exists.

Of course I also export all new Hyper-V virtual machines as soon as I have finished installing Windows, when the VHD file size is smallest. If then later I want to start from scratch, from freshly installed Windows, I just delete the VM and import it back.

 

How to release unused space in VHDX disks?

Everything except for the outdated Sdelete step. That is everywhere on the net but is not necessary now if it was before. It would take more than 24 hours on my setup to complete sdelete. Using the hypervisor administrator in 2016 server, I skipped the sdelete step, or zeroing free space. I just ran disk compact after deleting 150gb without zeroing anything and the size on disk was compacted by Hypervisor administrator to the 38GB's stored on disk and the virtual disk size unchanged.