Windows 10: Over 50GB of Temp Files in AppData Subfolder

Each device attached or program will place things generally in a new folder created for that specific item for bookmarks from browsers and VHDs from Virtual Box or VM Player as a couple of examples as well as any MS apps or other 3rd party wares. With any clean install or repair install of Windows the users folder as well as the Program Files and (x86) folders are all packed up in the WIndows.old so you can recover those files.

That's one reason for leaving the Personal History type box unchecked when going to use an app like CCleaner to avoid seeing the wrong files cleaned off the drive. And also one of the main reasons I prefer to manually nuke anything but the MS temp files the DiskCleanup or "crap cleaner" would otherwise take care of. I know exactly what is getting dumped.

 

Do you know for sure what is putting those temps in that folder ? Must be a software on system as mentioned here and you have many Adobe ones are known to put files there.

Not so great for SSD for such large temps being written and erased.

 

I'm not sure what all was using the folder before the cleanup.

However, I changed the Database and Cache directories for Adobe's software to my larger HDD, they were the last big space takers at over 8GB in total.

The other 40+ GB, haven't a clue.

 

Empty temp folders used to be drive space grabbers many a year back on XP machines but are hardly even noticed now since hard drive capacities expanded big time. The personal history files and possibly anything left behind in the Download folder would tend to chew up more drive space as well as any left over 10 setup files. The DiskCleanup nukes the BT but not WS folder. 3rd party wares tend to leave more folders behind however even when the programs are removed you still see drive space lost.

 

I was assuming you had a SSD is why. You would figure those adobe programs only put maybe update info there. Since being great amount is a bit odd in that folder, maybe other appdata folders or programs i have that store temps files goes to Documents, like blu-ray authoring software which i will do like you move to HDD. I know location can be changed in most programs. Identify the files, look at details of them, find were they are coming from.

 

While I was 'playing' with OneDrive, i.e. trying to get rid of it, three very similar initialization folders were generated in the TEMP folder. Thus, just exploring what Windows 10 has to offer may create a ton of temporary files.

 

I do, my OS is on my main OCZ ARC 100 240 GB SSD.

Apparently that's the default database and cache folder as well for Adobe Premiere and After Effects, not so much Photoshop... but I changed the directory for Premiere and AE to one on my larger HDD. Been using the computer, my main drive is still at 162 GB. So there may be some temporary files there, but everything for my Adobe software is going to a custom directory on my HDD, which that folder has about 3GB of stuff in it, most likely cached stuff from After Effects comps.

 

You may be running into some compressed archives created by the programs you have been using that will automatically stash things under your user account regardless of any custom install to folders on other drives. You may think you are only seeing a few smail files until realizing that they are not that small rather then simply assume the unexplained drive space is only being taken up by temp folders which are mostly only kilibytes in size.

I would be looking in those folders and right clicking on them to see how much the properties shows.

 

In the folder appdata there are folders local and temp. I have a shortcut to this temp folder on my desktop to quickly access and delete files here. I've done this cleaning manually for over five years now with Windows 7 and now Windows 10 without any problems what so ever.
Many programs use this folder as a temporary storage and if you don't clean it it will eventually fill up your drive.

 

All of 239mb less then a 1/4 of 1gb here after 3 full years.





I wouldn't be in such a rush to clean that out entirely however as well as in the Local Low temp which has a MS empty folder with empty sub folder safe to remove however.





You may just run into something like this where an active program is still accessing files there! Or after deletion a program may prompt that a file is missing. That's why there's a temp folder for temp files which each program may dump or overwrite automatically.

 

I always use this and run as Admin: TFC Temporary file removal tool to delete all the files in temp folders including the one under AppData\Local\Temp. The program will kill all processes that are currently locking some of the temp files.
FYI, you are not gonna hurt anything by doing this. After cleaning using the tool above, just sign out and sign back in.

 

I simply take ownership over any stubborn files I want to see gone while the same program will simply write an immediate replacement! The temp folder seen there isn't for temp installation logs but regularly accessed by the various programs you have on to write the temp files that will usually be overwritten in time from regular use of the program itself. Some of those are configuration log type files..

Other temp locations will tend to be seeing the temp logs for program installs as well as MS updates that typically add up in volume while each of those are generally only severla Kbytes in size. And as far as 10 is concerned you no longer will be finding an AppData folder to begin with since there isn't one! 10 has a totally new layout of things now compared to how 7 was as far as no longer seeing the "users]account name\AppData]" as well as the ProgramData and Perflogs folders at the root of C. The dual platforrm layout of folders now has to consider Tablet as well as Desktop in how things are laid out.

 

I have been deleting everything with no ill effects from %localappdata%\temp (which is C:\Users\xxxx\Appdata\local\temp) for years by simply ctrl + A and delete. There is nothing in here you require - it is logs, temp installers, lock files etc.

If Skype, Dropbox or something is running you'll be left with a couple of locked files. You can end processes and delete them as @topguncp mentioned above and they'll be recreated as required. Or just leave them. A well written program will tidy up after itself. Clearly not all are though.

Neither Disk Cleanup or CCleaner will tidy this folder for you.

 

Well CCleaner removes files from Temp folders just fine, if you you uncheck 24 hour limitation.

 

So it does, you are right. Not the locked ones though.