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Welcome to the 'Windows laptop: Managing storage' course. In this video, you'll learn about how to make sure you don't run out of space for files, how to delete unwanted files, and how to safely get them back if you make a mistake. Your computer stores all your files and information on its hard drive. If the hard drive fills up, you won't be able to save documents, download from the internet, or do many other tasks. The Storage Sense feature, however, keeps an eye on how much space the computer has left. It can tell which things on the hard drive are yours, and which are files made by applications on your computer that are no longer needed and can be safely deleted. This frees up space so your computer keeps working at its best.
To turn Storage Sense on, first click on the Start button in the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen. It looks like a window. When the panel opens, click on the Settings icon, which looks like a cog wheel, to open Windows Settings. On the left of the Settings panel, look for System and click it. The System panel will open on the right of the screen. In the System panel. Find the option called Storage and click on it. The right panel then changes to show the storage options. Here you can get a quick overview of how much space your files are using and how much is still free. Some of the terms on this screen are a bit technical, but the most useful part is this bar right at the top. The right of the bar shows you how much free space your computer has, and the left part tells you how much space your computer has already used. About halfway down the panel, you can see Storage Sense. To turn Storage Sense on, click on the switch so it changes from Off to On.
If the switch is already on, Storage Sense is already running. Your computer will now monitor things for you to help make sure you don't run out of space. It does this in the background so you don't need to worry about it. If your computer does start to run out of space, a notification will appear. You can click it and Storage Sense will give you options for what to do. You can ask Storage Sense to help you clean up your storage. Look down the screen to find 'Cleanup recommendations'. It may have a message under it saying something like, 'Over one gigabytes of storage available'. Click this to open the Cleanup recommendations panel. You can click on each option here to add it to a list of files that Storage Sense will clean up. You can choose categories such as Temporary files, Large or unused files, Files synced to the cloud, and Unused apps.
When you click at least one option, a white button appears saying Clean up, plus the amount of space that will be cleared on your computer's hard drive. In our example, we are going to clean up our Downloads folder. Click the tick box next to Downloads, and the white button appears saying 'Clean up 17.3 megabytes'. Click on it. A pop up will let you know that the files will be permanently deleted. If you are sure you want to proceed, click Continue. Storage Sense will say it's cleaning up.
This should only take a few moments depending on how many files your computer has. Don't download any app that offers to clean up or optimise your computer for you. It will almost always contain a scam that makes your computer less safe to use. Next up, we'll show you how to safely delete an item from your computer. First, click on the X in the top right of the Storage Sense panel to close it and return to the desktop. For this demonstration, we have a folder on the desktop that we are going to delete. If you don't have anything you want to delete right now, you can just follow along for the next few minutes.
To delete an item, click on it once to select it. You can tell it's selected when it's highlighted. Now press the delete key on your keyboard and the item will disappear, which means it is now deleted. If you accidentally deleted something, you can get it back right away using the Recycle Bin. Whenever you delete an item, it moves to the Recycle Bin. Find the Recycle Bin icon on the desktop and double-click it now. A panel opens showing all the items that have been deleted recently. This might be shown in a list or as icons. Here's the folder we deleted earlier. To get the folder back, right-click on it to see some options. Click on Restore. The folder will disappear from the Recycle Bin and reappear on the desktop. Whenever you restore an item, it returns to the place you deleted it from. That might be the desktop or from inside a folder. You can make sure items are deleted permanently by emptying the Recycle Bin. First, click on the X in the top right of the Recycle Bin window to close it. Now right-click on the Recycle Bin icon on the desktop.
From the options that appear, find Empty Recycle Bin. Before you click it, be very sure there are no items in the Recycle Bin that you want. Next, click Empty Recycle Bin. A box asking you to confirm you want to permanently delete all items will appear. Click Yes. You'll see the Recycle Bin's icon has changed to an empty bin. Now let's look at how to move items from your computer onto a USB drive to help you save space on your computer. A USB drive plugs into your computer's USB port and is a safe and easy way to transfer and store files and folders. To avoid viruses, only use a USB drive that's brand new or hasn't been shared with anyone else. You can buy one from the newsagency or supermarket and they don't cost much. For this demonstration, we are going to move a folder named Gardening and its files onto the USB drive. We'll then delete the folder from the computer, which will free up storage space. We can then open the files on the USB drive or copy them back onto the computer later. You can follow along with these steps using any folder on your desktop.
First, plug your USB drive into your computer. Your computer might ask you what you want to do with the USB drive. For now, ignore the notification and it will go away by itself. We're going to use the File Explorer to move our Gardening folder from the computer to the USB drive. Click on the Start button in the bottom left corner, and use the keyboard to type the word 'File'. The Start menu will change into a Search panel, and you'll see the File Explorer at the top. Click on it to continue. This is the File Explorer panel. On the left is a list of some of the places on your computer where files can be saved. Look down the list and find 'This PC'. Click it once, and the right side of the File Explorer panel will change to show some icons. Look under Devices and drives. You will see an icon with the Windows logo on it, next to a bar. It may have a name like 'Local disk C' or 'Windows C'.
This is your computer's hard drive where all your files are stored. The File Explorer panel will also show your USB drive. It'll have a different icon and its own name. This icon might be the brand of your USB drive, or it might look like a tiny USB drive. Click on the USB drive's icon, and the File Explorer panel on the right will change to show the files that are on your USB drive. If the panel is blank, it means the USB drive has no files on it at all. Now we're ready to copy our Gardening folder from the computer onto the USB drive. First, click and hold the mouse on the Gardening folder on your desktop. Then use the mouse to drag the folder across to the File Explorer panel. When the folder is over the panel, release the mouse button to drop the folder onto the USB drive. Now your computer will copy the Gardening folder with all its files onto the USB drive. If you have only a few files, this will finish in a flash.
If you have lots of files, you'll see a progress bar and an estimate of how long it will take. When you see the Gardening folder appear in the File Explorer panel, it's finished copying and the files are safely stored on the USB drive. Now click on the X in the top right of the File Explorer panel to close it. It's important to remember the Gardening folder is still on your desktop. To free up storage space on your computer, you can delete the folder from the desktop. Click once on the folder icon to highlight the Gardening folder on the desktop, and press Delete on your keyboard. The file will move to the Recycle Bin to completely remove the file from your computer. You can repeat the steps from Chapter 3 of this video to empty the Recycle Bin. A USB drive is good for transferring files, but it's safest to store important files in the cloud or an external hard drive. When you've finished copying files, it's important not to just unplug the USB drive right away. If you do, your files might become damaged. To make sure that doesn't happen, look in the bottom right of the screen at the row of icons to the left of the time. If you see an icon of a USB drive, click on it.
If you can't see it, find the small arrow and click on it instead. From the pop-up menu that appears, click on the USB icon. The name of your USB drive will appear, and the words Eject Flash Disk. Click it to let your computer know you are going to unplug the USB drive. After a moment, the pop up will disappear, or you may get a notification saying it's safe to remove hardware. This means you can unplug your USB drive from the computer and put it away somewhere safe. You should now know some ways to keep your computer from running out of space, how to delete unwanted files and retrieve them if you made a mistake, and how to safely remove a USB drive from your computer. If you are unsure about any steps, you can rewind the video or click the chapter headings to jump to the start of a chapter. If you are ready to move on, there are many other courses to explore on Be connected.