Why is my C drive running out of space?

When you see the C drive bar becoming red, it means running out of space on C drive. You might want to know why drive C always running out of space. Generally, there is too much data including junk files, cache data, and programs saved on your system partition.

To let your computer work normally, you need to free up storage space properly. We have prepared 6 effective methods for you to fix C drive running out of space in the following part.

How to fix C drive running out of space

We have concluded 6 different ways to fix C drive running out of space. There are different detailed guidelines for them in the following part. If your C drive is full without reason, you can try them one by one until solve the problem.

Solution 1. Try the Disk Cleanup tool

First, there is an effective tool in Windows operating system called Disk Cleanup, which can help you clean up local disk space. To use it, please refer to the easy steps here:

1. In the Windows search box, input cleanmgr.exe. Find Disk Cleanup in the search result, and click to run it.

2. Select C drive and choose OK. In this window, just choose files to delete to free up your C drive storage space. Then click on OK.

Solution 2. Use Storage Sense

If you met my C drive is running out of space in Windows 10, you can try to use the Storage Sense tool, which is built in Windows 10. It can help you free up local disk space by deleting unimportant files and programs. Let’s see how to use Storage Sense in Windows 10:

1. Find Storage Sense in the Windows search box and run it.

2. Go to the Configure Storage Sense or run it now page, then press the Clean now button under Free up space now.

Solution 3. Uninstall unimportant apps

Application on your computer may take up lots of local storage space. Some of them are not necessary for your work and life. Thus, you can uninstall them to get more free local disk space on C drive.

1. Go to Start menu > Settings > Apps > Apps & features.

2. On this page, you can choose some unimportant apps and select Uninstall.

After uninstalling, you will get some available local storage space on your C drive.

Solution 4. Delete temporary files

If you have used your computer for a long period without cleaning up, there will be lots of temporary files created and saved on your computer. Most of them are not useful for you any more. So you can delete all temporary files following the easy guide:

1. Press the Windows and R keys at the same time. In the Run box, type %temp% and then click OK.

2. Then you can choose temporary files to delete completely.

Solution 5. Empty Recycle Bin

After you delete files on the computer, they will not be deleted permanently. Instead, they will be kept in Recycle Bin, which will occupy local disk space. You can go to Recycle Bin to empty it and you will get more local space on C drive.

Solution 6. Disable the Hibernation feature

There is a Hibernation feature on your computer. If it is on, it will take up lots of local disk space. Thus, you had better disable the Hibernation feature.

1. Type cmd in the Windows search box and right-click on Command Prompt. Choose Run as administrator.

2. Input this command: powercfg.exe /hibernate off

Then press Enter.

After the above, the Hibernation feature has been disabled.

Solution 7. Extend C drive space with Disk Management

If your C drive and other partitions are located on the same disk, and there is extra free space in other partitions on the right side of C drive, you can consider extending C drive with Disk Management.

1. Right-click on the Windows icon on your computer, then select Disk Management here.

2. Find your C drive and right-click on it to select Extend Volume.... Then follow its instructions to extend C drive completely.

Tip: Backup computer files to free cloud storage

If your computer always notes your C disk running out of space, and there are no unimportant files left to delete, meanwhile, there is no enough disk storage to extend C drive, you can consider saving personal files to cloud and then delete them on your computer to free up local disk storage, then you could extend C drive easily. Or you can back up C drive to the cloud for data protection.

To save data to cloud storage, you can use a free cloud backup service - CBackup. No matter what cloud drive you are using, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, or CBackup Cloud, you can back up data to it via CBackup.

Any type of data is supported to backup in CBackup, like files, folders, programs, hard drives, and even the entire computer.

Your backup task can be performed automatically with the Scheduler feature in CBackup.

CBackup will help you back up data to cloud without any limit on transfer speed and file size.

Let’s see how to backup computer files to the cloud via CBackup easily and quickly.

1. Download and install the CBackup desktop client on your computer first. Sign up for a new CBackup account, then run the client to log into it.

2. Click on the Storage tab. If you want to create a backup to Google Drive, choose Google Drive > Authorize Now. And please follow the step-by-step instructions to grant CBackup access to your Google Drive account safely.

3. Click on the Backup button and choose Backup PC to Public Cloud.

4. Choose local files or other types of data on your computer as the backup source, and pick the Google Drive account you just added to CBackup as the backup destination.

5. After the above, click the Start Backup button to backup your data from local to the cloud directly.

★Tips: In addition to backup, CBackup provides many other effective features for free.

Combine cloud storage: If you need more cloud storage, you can try this feature to merge multiple cloud drive accounts together to form a combined cloud with larger cloud space.

Sync PC to public cloud: CBackup can also help you sync data from PC to cloud.

Free cloud storage: CBackup gives each account 10GB of free cloud storage in CBackup Cloud to store data.

Written in the end

If you are running out of space on C drive, don’t panic, you can use the 7 solutions mentioned in this article to fix disk full in Windows. Also, you can consider saving some of your data on the cloud, which will free up a lot of local disk space on C drive.