How to Free Up Disk Space in Windows 11

If your laptop starts warning you about low disk space and there’s less and less room left, don’t rush to buy a new SSD. First, try cleaning up the system a bit — you might be surprised how much space you can reclaim just by trimming down Windows 11’s appetite. Here are a few easy ways to do that.

Uninstall unnecessary apps and preinstalled bloatware

Windows often comes with a handful of extras from Microsoft — like the Xbox Companion app (even if you don’t own a console), Teams, News, and more. On top of that, manufacturers like Lenovo, HP, and Asus love to throw in their own antivirus tools, optimizers, and cleaners — most of which you probably don’t need.

To clean things up, go to Settings → Installed apps, and remove anything you don’t actually use. Click the three dots next to an app’s name and select Uninstall.

Turn off hibernation

Hibernation saves the contents of your RAM to disk so you can resume work quickly — useful for laptops, but it takes up a hefty chunk of space. The file hiberfil.sys can be several gigabytes. If you don’t use hibernation, turn it off.

Here’s how:
1. Open Command Prompt as administrator.

2. Type this command:

 powercfg /hibernate off

3. Press Enter and restart your PC.

Want it back later? Just replace off with on.

Remove unused language packs

Sometimes your system comes with extra languages — especially if the laptop was shipped internationally. You might have Chinese, Spanish, or French packs installed even if you don’t use them.

To remove:
Start → Settings → Time & language → Language & region

Find the unused language, click the three dots next to it, and choose Remove.

Disable unneeded Windows features

Windows 11 includes built-in features like WordPad, PDF printing support, Windows Media Player, and even the Linux Subsystem — many of which you might never use. If that’s the case, you can disable them.

Go to Start → Settings → System → Optional features, then click More Windows features.

Uncheck anything you don’t need. If you ever want something back, Windows can download it again later.

Delete offline maps

The built-in “Maps” app can download regions for offline use. Handy if you travel — but if you never touch it, those files just take up space.

Go to:
Start → Settings → Apps → Offline maps

Open the list and delete anything unnecessary.

Turn on NTFS file compression

NTFS, the default Windows file system, can compress files right on the drive. It adds a small processing load, but on modern systems, you likely won’t notice. And it can save quite a bit of space.

Here’s how:

1. Open File Explorer and find your C: drive or any folder you want to compress.
2. Right-click → Properties
3. Check Compress contents to save disk space, then click OK
4. Confirm applying it to all subfolders and files

Rebuild the search index

Windows uses an index to help you quickly find files and apps — but over time, that index can grow pretty large.

To refresh it:
Start → Settings → Privacy & security → Searching Windows

Go to Advanced indexing options → Advanced, then click Rebuild.

It might take a while, but the new index will be smaller and faster.