Even with the abundance of streaming services available today, Windows PC storage can still fill up quickly. Games, photos, movies, and apps can take up significant chunks of room, and before you know it, that SSD is starting to run low on free space. But fear not – there are plenty of ways to free up space on your Windows PC, from using built-in tools provided by Microsoft to keeping your files and folders better organized.

One of the most effective ways to start clearing out unnecessary files is to get your files and folders organized. Windows itself gets you started with default folders for Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos, which you can make use of or ignore as you'd like. You can also right-click on any folder to pin it to the Start menu or the Quick Access pane (which is on the left of File Explorer). Having a system in place makes it quicker to get to what you want, and it also means you can more easily identify data you're done with and can safely delete.

Once you've determined it's time to start cleaning up, it's a good idea to see where all your storage space is going in terms of apps and file types. From Windows Settings, choose System > Storage, and you can then click on one of the categories – Temporary files, Documents, etc. – to get more info and possibly get rid of unwanted files. You can also see which files are taking up the most room in a specific folder by going to File Explorer: from the top of the window, click Sort > More > Size.

Now that you've got some idea of what to get rid of, it's time to start doing some clearing. To begin with, hit Delete on any file or folder in File Explorer that you want to delete. It will get sent to the Recycle Bin, which you can empty manually or set to empty itself automatically using the Windows Storage Sense feature. Storage Sense is a feature built into Windows that can automatically clean up different types of files from your system, including temporary files that are no longer needed, deleted files in the Recycle Bin, and files that have already been backed up to your OneDrive account, among others.

You can also get cleanup recommendations from Windows, which will explain to you the types of files it is safe to delete. Go to the System > Storage page of Windows Settings and select Cleanup recommendations, and you'll find suggestions about where storage savings could be made, depending on the current state of your system. Options can include removing temporary files, large files, unused files, and files already synced to the cloud.

Uninstalling apps is another way to free up space on your Windows PC. Unless you're doing everything in the cloud, apps are likely to take up a substantial amount of room on your system. One way to find out which apps you might want to uninstall is to go back to Cleanup recommendations and look for Unused apps. You can also check out which apps take up the most space by going to Windows Settings, head to Apps > Installed apps, and sort by size (Large to small) to look up the worst offenders when it comes to storage.

In addition to these built-in tools and strategies, there are other ways to free up space on your Windows PC. For instance, if you've got games libraries installed on your Windows PC, removing older games you haven't used in a while can free up serious amounts of space. In the Steam client for Windows, for instance, right-click on any title on the Library pane, then choose Manage > Uninstall to remove it.

In conclusion, freeing up space on your Windows PC is a matter of using the right tools and strategies to clear out unnecessary files and apps. By getting your files and folders organized, using built-in tools like Storage Sense and Cleanup recommendations, and uninstalling unused apps, you can reclaim your storage space and improve your PC's performance.