How do I find a large file on a drive?

[epicrotfl]

I'm trying to figure out what's being saved to one of my drives that's eating up all of it's storage space. I've tried everything that I can think of but I'm not sure what else to try.

The only thing that should be on this drive is my OS, some pictures, and a few documents and some pictures but its somehow eating up 250GBs of space.

Anyone got an suggestions?

[Illusion of Progress]

Software which displays what files are on your drive and how large they are, such as WizTree, can show you.

[Bing Chilling]

like illusion mentioned Wiztree is a great application for this, and it has a very nice UI
making things easy. i use it alot when trying to figure out what to delete or move to another drive.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

But you do realize these "could" be culprits of eating up space on OS Drive, right?

> Hibernation left enabled. This will eat up 75% of RAM as a temp disk file; so for example if you have 16GB installed RAM, the temp hibernation file would consume 12GB of space at all times. To rid the PC of this, launch CMD (run as admin) and type: POWERCFG -H OFF ~Press Enter key and when done, Restart Windows to apply the change and rid the OS Drive of the temp file, thus gaining back that space. Modern PCs really have no use for Hibernation. You can still use Sleep Mode if you really wish.

> Most Games store all of the extras outside of core downloaded game files, on the OS Drive; such as within User folders, such as the Documents or AppData structure. Some times might even make seperate screenshots when using the F11 or F12 key, even though you might have meant to only use F12 for say, Steam Client screenshot capture, many games use that internally and thus could be taking up space for its own folder set of screenshots you've taken over time. The game usually does this in an uncompressed method to, so with many games, screenshots taken could be PNG, which at high resolutions could be taking up tons of space. Games also store other files on OS Drive such as the extra config files, cache files and saved game files that all of your games will create over time as you play them. Even games you might have uninstalled over time could have left-over files on OS Drive.

> Windows Updates and Feature Updates temp files. Use Disk Cleanup (Run As Admin) (or Settings > System > Storage > Temp Files) to rid the OS Drive of these needless files. There may also be extra temp files related to this within here: C: > Windows > SoftwareDistribution > Download ~ But before sure the PC has restarted fresh before deleting them. As you don't want to attempt to clear any of this out should the OS be in the middle of a Downloading or Updating via the WU services.

> If you did a major update such as a Feature Update (such as going from 21H2 or 22H2, or 23H2 to 24H2; etc. Then there is most likely an entire backup of the previous OS version within "C:\Windows.old" ~ Use Disk Cleanup (Run As Admin)

> Games and other 3D applications need to create GPU Shader Cache, which gets stored here: AppData > Local (or Low) > GPU brand name folder (Intel / AMD / NVIDIA)

[emoticorpse]

At 250 gb, you really don't have space. That's part of the problem. Get a bigger drive.

[_I_]

or use windows disk cleanup

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by _I_:

or use windows disk cleanup

That only finds small amounts of OS related stuff; nothing related to personal files or game files and such or temp junk from most apps.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by emoticorpse:

At 250 gb, you really don't have space. That's part of the problem. Get a bigger drive.

No he says it's TAKING UP 250GB

[emoticorpse]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Originally posted by emoticorpse:

At 250 gb, you really don't have space. That's part of the problem. Get a bigger drive.

No he says it's TAKING UP 250GB

Oh, my bad. Seems like you're right.

[_I_]

you can check steams installed games to see their sizes
steam -> settings -> storage -> select drive/library

[Bad 💀 Motha]

And have at least 1 secondary drive for something like games and personal tile storage and downloads

[epicrotfl]

Originally posted by emoticorpse:

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

No he says it's TAKING UP 250GB

Oh, my bad. Seems like you're right.

I actually you were right the first time, that was really bad phrasing on my part.

I have a 250GB SSD for my OS, a 1 TB general storage drive, and then a 4 TB drive plus another 1TB SSD for games.

The OS drive only contains my OS, the folders that come with it, some screenshots, and a few work programs which store their content on the general storage drive. Altogether, I should have about 50GB free on that drive, but something else keeps taking up that space and I'm trying to figure out what.

I've tried searching through and deleting things I don't use anymore, but that hasn't helped; and my attempt to search through folders based on date modified hasn't helped me find anything either.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Oh OK I see.

So look in File Explorer > THIS PC
What does it say when you go to Properties for C Drive as far as FREE and USED Space?

[epicrotfl]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Oh OK I see.

So look in File Explorer > THIS PC
What does it say when you go to Properties for C Drive as far as FREE and USED Space?

I have 18.7GB free of 231, which is an improvement from the 2.9 I had free before I moved some files and restarted my PC.

[Freqsync]

so checked to see if posted OS.. yet all that is OS when trying to filter it out with cntrl f is pOSted and OS.

Depending on that might be a way to ask computer to do it through a cmd prompt or even a explorer...
There are folders that keep logs for a lot of things, just for when it goes to sleep is one and measures things to send for diagnostics. Could be anything like that hibernation, old install, temp, other temps,

Should check your scheduled tasks? Not sure how what version OS or type specifies.

Try simple which is gonna be interesting *.* in a search engine and mark a tab to go by most to least?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Ok did you double check everything I covered in POST #3