James from Oklahoma writes:
Yesterday I was doing a security scan of my wife’s computer and had noticed that after the scan finished it had 2,000,000 plus files, where are all these files coming from? How do I get files reduced?
As you use your computer to browse the web, download e-mail, edit photos and all of the other daily tasks, many small files are created and stored in the process. These files vary from cache files that allow website images and video to display quickly to configuration files and user data.
While the gut reaction to seeing tons of files on your hard drive may be to spend hours going through directory by directory and deleting files, I would not. Instead, look at total space used and decide if it’s necessary to free up room or if you’ve got plenty to spare. You can check by going to Computer or My Computer and right-clicking on your hard drive, then clicking Properties.
You will be shown a pie graph showing free space and used space on the hard drive. The blue color is the used space on your drive and the pink is the free space on the drive. You should only be concerned if the blue is the majority of the pie. You will also see a detailed breakdown of the used space and the free space.
You can click the Disk Cleanup utility for windows to scan and find various files that are usually safe to remove. You’ll be shown a detailed list with checkboxes for what to remove. Once you’re done selecting files to remove press OK and the cleanup utility will remove the files selected.