Tips on How to Clean Up Junk Files on Windows

As your computer ages, your hard drive will be filled up with files that are considered as junk. Because of this, the performance of your Windows computer will slow down since your system will have to work hard in finding the data that needs to be accessed. Removing these unwanted files from your computer will improve your system functions.

Junk files are basically the temporary and duplicate files, unused shortcuts, and browsed cache data that are generated by an internet browser, a program, or by a Windows operating system after your computer starts up. When you run a program, the system uses system and non-system files to initiate a function to make sure that the program will load faster. This is the reason why it is necessary to clean them up in order to maintain a healthy and optimized PC.

You can do a manual or automatic clean up. There are a lot of methods that can be used to do this. We'll start first with manual methods.

MANUAL:

Clear up all your browser's cache files.

When you are browsing the internet, you are also accumulating unnecessary files since your Windows computer automatically saves data from the sites you have visited. Here are the steps in cleaning up your internet browser.

1. Open your internet browser. You don't need to have internet connection in performing the clearing up steps.

2. Go to the toolbar of your browser (take note that each internet browser has different tool options so be sure that you are familiar with them.) and find the History option.

3. Clear the History as this will clear the memory of all the pages of your visited sites.

4. Clear also the cookies and the temporary files in your browsing history.

Clear up your Windows desktop.

It is important that you also clean your computer's desktop to save some space from your hard drive. You should get rid of the unused shortcuts and organize them. Here's how to do it.

For Windows XP

1. Right-click on an empty space in your Windows desktop and select Arrange Icons By.

2. Select Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard.

3. Click the Next button.

4. A prompt box will appear with the options of which icons should be removed. Tick the boxes of the icons you want to remove then click the Next button.

5. Click Finish to confirm all the changes you have done.

6. Windows will automatically make a folder that keeps the unused shortcuts. You can always restore the icons once you need them.

For Windows 7

1. Right-click on an empty space in your desktop and Select the View option.

2. Click on Show Desktop Icons.

3. In doing this, the option will be unchecked and your desktop icons will be no longer seen in your desktop. You can restore them by checking the Show Desktop Icons, again.

Run Disk Cleanup

Disk Cleanup is a built-in utility for your Windows operating system. Disk Cleanup is important since it will automatically remove all the temporary files that are stored in your computer. Here are the steps in running the Disk Cleanup.

For Windows XP

1. Go to your Windows desktop and Click the Start button. Select Programs then Accessories then System Tools.

2. Choose the Disk Cleanup option under the System Tools.

3. You will be given the option on which drive you wanted to clean up. Select the drive you wish the Disk Cleanup to run and let the program analyze it.

4. A dialog box will pop up showing you the files that can be deleted. Review them then click OK to delete them.

5. By doing this, you are able to free up some space from your computer memory. However, if you still wish to free more space, you can click the More Options tab then click the Clean up button under System Restore.

For Windows 7

1. In your Windows desktop, click the Start button and type Disk Cleanup in the search bar.

2. Launch the program and you will be given the option on which drive you want to clean up.

3. Click OK and let the tool analyze the disk.

4. You must review the list of files that can be deleted then click OK if satisfied.

5. Just like with Windows XP, you can clean up the System Restore points. To do this, Click the Clean up System Files option then click the cleanup under System Restore and Shadow Copies.

AUTOMATIC:

Junk files are scattered in your computer system. Performing the manual techniques can be time consuming. However, if you want to do the clean up the easy and quick way, you can do these following steps.

1. Install a cleanup software for your system by downloading it from a trusted source.

2. Run the application and let it scan your system and automatically delete those unnecessary files from your computer.

Cleaning up junk files from your system will enable your computer to perform faster and thus be more reliable.