windows 10 system files are huge!

[fallout4player]

so i checked my storage on my mac(running windows 10) it said 340gb used out of 500gb. 249gb of that are the windows system files. why are they so big and how do i make more storage. please help. im at high school and all my documents take a crap load of space. sooner or later im going to use it all up.

[rproffitt]

There are tools to go find what it is. Did you try the usual of turning off then on system restore? That issue has been with us for over 16 years.

[CimmerianX]

Seems like a lot of space for windows system.
Try the following tools. I use them myself frequently. It will give you information and the ability to clear space.

WinDirStat - This will scan the disk and visually show you a representation of file sizes and locations.

CCleaner - This will scan your disk and identify files that can usually be removed (e.g. temp folder files, large downloads). Double check what you will clean up before using it, IE history and cached PWs can be on the list for example.

[rproffitt]

Good tools mentioned by CimmerianX. Read why I get such from Ninite at http://www.howtogeek.com/201354/ninite-is-the-only-safe-place-to-get-windows-freeware/

[fallout4player]

thanks

[CimmerianX]

+1 for ninite. I use that all the time, especially for Classic Shell to 'fix' the windows menu in ver 8 and 10.

[saxon747]

Check to make sure you don't have a short cut that is saveing you files to c drive.also you can use a programe to see what files are taken you space up .like folder size.

[mblan180131]

There's a system tool built into your control panel (or at least, in windows XP) called disk defragment. When you delete a file, it doesn't just wipe it out of existence. Think of the file as a person living in a house. When the file is deleted, only the person is moved out. The home remains. It then becomes a hobo house, just waiting to be destroyed. What disk defragment does is it goes through every square inch of your disk, looking for a home without a person in it. When it finds one of these homes, it destroys it with a wrecking ball (not really). How disk space is measured is this:

 ____
|    |
|____| <--your computer sees this as the ending point of your disk space
|file|
|    | <--no person living in this home, it is just a blank space
|file|

so to clear things up, the empty homes where files used to live "take up space", but not really, that is just how windows sees it. Windows is stupid, isn't it?

[Itsdigger]

Did you get Windows 10 through Windows Update ?
If so, Windows creates a windows.old file that has the old OS plus the files that allows you to roll back to the previous OS.
If you don't intend to roll back, you can run "Disk Cleanup" and remove these files , I regained over 15 GB by doing this.