Laptop Help

[shaun mc]

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad and have noticed that the storage left is just constantly decreasing

The total storage is 119GB and I have less than 2GB left

I'm not adding anything at all that can use the storage, (as far as I know) except a few small downloads

Storage says Apps & Features are using 69.3GB. I've sorted the Apps by size. The largest is 0.6GB (McAfee) and the Top 10 add up to no more than 3GB. There are no more than another 25 smaller Apps on the laptop, so why are they using so much storage space?

Any suggestions how to free up space? Storage sense is on. I've used disk cleanup and also deleted about 6GB of photos and downloads. 

Thanks for any help

[Bedford Roughyed]

8 minutes ago, shaun mc said:

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad and have noticed that the storage left is just constantly decreasing

The total storage is 119GB and I have less than 2GB left

I'm not adding anything at all that can use the storage, (as far as I know) except a few small downloads

Storage says Apps & Features are using 69.3GB. I've sorted the Apps by size. The largest is 0.6GB (McAfee) and the Top 10 add up to no more than 3GB. There are no more than another 25 smaller Apps on the laptop, so why are they using so much storage space?

Any suggestions how to free up space? Storage sense is on. I've used disk cleanup and also deleted about 6GB of photos and downloads. 

Thanks for any help

Might be storing back ups on its own disk?  Do you have lots of things stored on the desktop?

[Futtocks]

My old laptop was running really low on space before I replaced it. With less than 2GB, you probably won't be able to install Windows updates before making at least 6gB of space, maybe more.

Two things that you can do, which will help (a little).

1. Install and run the free version of CCleaner - use it once a week, and it will strip out accumulated junk files. You may want to deselect the password cleaning and maybe the odd other option from the browser cleaning list of checkboxes.

2. Open File Explorer, go to This PC, right-click on your C drive and select Properties. There should be a Disk Clean-up button. Click that, then select Clean up System Files and look at the list of things to clean and how much space they are using. Disk Clean-up is quick to run, but System Files clearing will take a few minutes, so don't assume it has crashed. It can shift quite a lot of old Windows update files (often several gB).

In both the above cases, take the time for a good look at what they can clean up and decide which you want rid of and which you should keep, before running the processes. I de-select saved passwords, saved form information and a couple of other things for my default browser, when using CCleaner. In Disk Clean-up, I de-select the Downloads folder, in case I have stuff in there I haven't decided where to save yet.

[shaun mc]

12 minutes ago, Bedford Roughyed said:

Might be storing back ups on its own disk?  Do you have lots of things stored on the desktop?

Thanks 

There's no more than 20MB on the desktop, I cleared that down as well. There is something that is prefixed with Backup and is Registration Entries - this is 323MB. Not huge

I can't post a screen snip of it, sorry

 

[shaun mc]

12 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

My old laptop was running really low on space before I replaced it. With less than 2GB, you probably won't be able to install Windows updates before making at least 6gB of space, maybe more.

Two things that you can do, which will help (a little).

1. Install and run the free version of CCleaner - use it once a week, and it will strip out accumulated junk files. You may want to deselect the password cleaning and maybe the odd other option from the browser cleaning list of checkboxes.

2. Open File Explorer, go to This PC, right-click on your C drive and select Properties. There should be a Disk Clean-up button. Click that, then select Clean up System Files and look at the list of things to clean and how much space they are using. Disk Clean-up is quick to run, but System Files clearing will take a few minutes, so don't assume it has crashed. It can shift quite a lot of old Windows update files.

In both the above cases, take the time for a good look at what they can clean up and decide which you want rid of and which you should keep, before running the processes. I de-select saved passwords, saved form information and a couple of other things for my default browser, when using CCleaner.

Thanks for that - I'll run CCleaner and see how it goes

[shaun mc]

On 28/07/2020 at 22:33, Futtocks said:

My old laptop was running really low on space before I replaced it. With less than 2GB, you probably won't be able to install Windows updates before making at least 6gB of space, maybe more.

Two things that you can do, which will help (a little).

1. Install and run the free version of CCleaner - use it once a week, and it will strip out accumulated junk files. You may want to deselect the password cleaning and maybe the odd other option from the browser cleaning list of checkboxes.

2. Open File Explorer, go to This PC, right-click on your C drive and select Properties. There should be a Disk Clean-up button. Click that, then select Clean up System Files and look at the list of things to clean and how much space they are using. Disk Clean-up is quick to run, but System Files clearing will take a few minutes, so don't assume it has crashed. It can shift quite a lot of old Windows update files (often several gB).

In both the above cases, take the time for a good look at what they can clean up and decide which you want rid of and which you should keep, before running the processes. I de-select saved passwords, saved form information and a couple of other things for my default browser, when using CCleaner. In Disk Clean-up, I de-select the Downloads folder, in case I have stuff in there I haven't decided where to save yet.

Ran CCleaner this morning - it only created about 4.1GB of storage space

I now have 7.95GB of storage space left

The amount of space taken up by the Apps (69.2GB) hasn't changed. This is the one that doesn't stack up. From the listing of the Apps, it shouldn't be more than 4 to 5GB

 

 

 

[Futtocks]

50 minutes ago, shaun mc said:

Ran CCleaner this morning - it only created about 4.1GB of storage space

I now have 7.95GB of storage space left

The amount of space taken up by the Apps (69.2GB) hasn't changed. This is the one that doesn't stack up. From the listing of the Apps, it shouldn't be more than 4 to 5GB

Drive space is taken up by more than just apps. Have you tried the "Clean up System Files" option yet? I found that it usually created a significant amount of extra space.

[shaun mc]

13 hours ago, Futtocks said:

Drive space is taken up by more than just apps. Have you tried the "Clean up System Files" option yet? I found that it usually created a significant amount of extra space.

I've run a Custom Clean on both Windows and Applications and now up to 8GB free - not specifically Clean Up System Files though

Sorry I can't give you screen shots to help - I can't seem to post screen shots anymore on here

The Apps are using nearly 70GB out of 119GB

 

[Futtocks]

44 minutes ago, shaun mc said:

I've run a Custom Clean on both Windows and Applications and now up to 8GB free - not specifically Clean Up System Files though

Sorry I can't give you screen shots to help - I can't seem to post screen shots anymore on here

The Apps are using nearly 70GB out of 119GB

Clean Up System Files was always the biggie with my old laptop. Towards the end, I couldn't install any Windows updates without running that. There should be a few gB to erase when you do that.

Even so, you are (like me with my previous machine) stuck with an initial hard drive capacity that's barely up to modern space-hungry demands. As an example, my new, relatively cheap laptop has a hard drive of over 900 gB. 

[shaun mc]

8 hours ago, Futtocks said:

Clean Up System Files was always the biggie with my old laptop. Towards the end, I couldn't install any Windows updates without running that. There should be a few gB to erase when you do that.

Even so, you are (like me with my previous machine) stuck with an initial hard drive capacity that's barely up to modern space-hungry demands. As an example, my new, relatively cheap laptop has a hard drive of over 900 gB. 

Thanks for your help with this

I know what you mean about space limits on this laptop - my back-up external drive is 1TB for about £40. I didn't check the spec when I bought it as it was an insurance claim replacement (part of an overall burglary claim)

I have no music or videos on it either. I'll investigate other options

[my missus]

check system restore if its creating restore points this can eat space.

[tonyXIII]

On 31/07/2020 at 09:21, shaun mc said:

Thanks for your help with this

I know what you mean about space limits on this laptop - my back-up external drive is 1TB for about £40. I didn't check the spec when I bought it as it was an insurance claim replacement (part of an overall burglary claim)

I have no music or videos on it either. I'll investigate other options

My computer knowledge is limited, but couldn't you just add an external hard drive? You say you have one for backups, but surely that would give you tons of extra space for minimal cost? If speed is the problem, I think you probably need a new processor, ie a new laptop.

 

[Derwent]

If you have iPlayer etc check that you haven’t got any downloaded programmes within it. 

[Trevorkfevfan]

5 hours ago, tonyXIII said:

couldn't you just add an external hard drive?

That was in my mind as well, a fairly easy and relatively cheap option nowadays that should work well.

[shaun mc]

2 hours ago, Derwent said:

If you have iPlayer etc check that you haven’t got any downloaded programmes within it. 

Thanks - 1 download of 0.5GB deleted

[shaun mc]

Thanks to all for suggestions. External storage it may have to be

Apps & Features are 70.3GB of the storage and System & Reserved files are 22.6GB. Therefore nearly 80% of storage being taken up by these

From the listing of the Apps I have on the laptop in order of size I can account for about 5 to 6GB - the remaining 65GB isn't detailed. So I have no idea what it is.

I'll also get onto a Lenovo community forum to see if I can find something on there to explain it 

[Futtocks]

12 hours ago, shaun mc said:

Thanks to all for suggestions. External storage it may have to be

Apps & Features are 70.3GB of the storage and System & Reserved files are 22.6GB. Therefore nearly 80% of storage being taken up by these

From the listing of the Apps I have on the laptop in order of size I can account for about 5 to 6GB - the remaining 65GB isn't detailed. So I have no idea what it is.

I'll also get onto a Lenovo community forum to see if I can find something on there to explain it 

Some apps (but not all) can be moved to an external drive by Windows. Others would need to be uninstalled, then reinstalled on the external drive: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/move-installed-apps-programs-windows-10/ 

[shaun mc]

To re-visit this again (sorry)......

I've found what is taking up the hard drive space via an app called TreeSize, 

Does anyone know if what appear to be McAfee log files are ok to be deleted? These are taking up nearly 50% of the total

[Futtocks]

2 hours ago, shaun mc said:

To re-visit this again (sorry)......

I've found what is taking up the hard drive space via an app called TreeSize, 

Does anyone know if what appear to be McAfee log files are ok to be deleted? These are taking up nearly 50% of the total

Are you actively using McAfee software (antivirus, I'd assume), or is it something that came pre-installed?

If it is antivirus software, you could uninstall, make sure the files have been fully deleted, then just use Microsoft's own Defender AV which is already part of Windows.

[shaun mc]

11 hours ago, Futtocks said:

Are you actively using McAfee software (antivirus, I'd assume), or is it something that came pre-installed?

If it is antivirus software, you could uninstall, make sure the files have been fully deleted, then just use Microsoft's own Defender AV which is already part of Windows.

Thanks again Futtocks

I was up and about early this morning (too hot) so got onto McAfee Live Chat. They uninstalled the anti-virus and re-installed it

I'll check to see if those logs start growing in size again, then just rely on Defender AV once McAfee runs out

The laptop now has 55GB more storage available