What exactly is deleted with Windows 10 Storage Sense? or Disable?

Having to keep your hard drive free from the junk is what you would need to focus on, especially when you have a lower amount of space on your hard drive. Most of us forget or do not like the housecleaning er.. computer cleaning. This results in piling up the unwanted and temporary files on your hard drive. Thankfully, Windows 10 comes with a unique feature that helps you achieve that. Yes, we are referring to the function called StorageSense which aims at cleaning up your hard drive and avoid it from being filled up with junk. How does it work, and what does it do? What exactly is deleted with Windows 10 Storage Sense? Let us check out in the following paragraphs.

What is StorageSense?

Our aim as long as this post is concerned is to find what files does StorageSense remove from your hard drive. But, before that, it would be apt enough to understand what exactly is storage sense and what does it do. Let us check it out first.

Cleaning up your hard drive of the temporary files and keeping it clean is what you should be focussed on. Windows 10 has a bad track record where it does not remove the temporary files and keeps piling them up. Of course, there are options like Recycle Bin and other utilities like Disk Cleanup that assist you to clean the hard drive of the temporary and unneeded files. But, using them may not be intuitive and will need some sort of manual intervention.

That is precisely where a tool or a feature like StorageSense makes sense. It is built-in functionality that comes with your Windows 10 and lets you automatically clean up the hard drive. It is a tool that monitors your storage space explicitly and removes the files that you will not be using anymore. It tracks the usage statistics of the data and based on whether they are used or not, removes the files from your hard drive automatically.

What exactly is deleted with Windows 10 Storage Sense?

Well, by default the storage sense application is designed to remove the temporary files from your computer. It will also delete the files in recycle bin that has been there for more than 30 days.

This is also true of the temporary files in your Downloads folder. The feature was not available in the earlier versions, but with the recent updates, the storage sense now works with your Downloads folder as well. It can be stated that Windows has merged the functionalities available on Disk Cleanup and Delete temporary files options available in the previous versions of Windows. (Of course, the features continue to exist even on the Windows 10).

If you want to find which files does StorageSense remove from your hard drive, you can follow the below-mentioned steps to find out –

• Launch Settings and move to System
• Click on Storage on the left side sidebar
• You should now find the storage sense option on this page.
• Click on Change how we free up space automatically.

Clicking on this option will assist you in finding what exactly is cleared from your hard drive.

The Typical items or files cleared by StorageSense would include the following categories –

• Temporary Files – The StorageSense feature will remove all the temporary files on your hard drive. You can configure when the temporary files are deleted. By default, the files will be deleted after 30 days of their creation. You can change the default setting to the following options
• Never – if you do not want the files to be automatically deleted
• One day
• 14 days
• 30 days and
• 60 days

 

• Files in Downloads Folder – This is yet another option that should have a bearing on how your hard drive is filled up. Of course, you would not want every file in your folder to be deleted. However, you tend to download something, use it for the purpose it has been downloaded for and forget it. Most of the time, there may be files that you no longer need. You can configure StorageSense to delete these files based on a few criteria. Once again, you can configure the storage sense functionality based on when you want to delete the data and set it to delete the files that have been there for one day, 14 days, 30 days and 60 days. You may even configure it not to delete any files and decide to delete the files automatically. Some of the files you would want to delete would include installation files for the programs you have already installed, PDF files from your credit card or other similar financial services that you no longer need, the utility bills that you may have downloaded on your device and newsletters.
• Local Clod Content – There are several instances where you have uploaded some of your content to the cloud services and want to delete them from your local storage. StorageSense can take care of these files as well. For now, the functionality works only with OneDrive. If you do not have OneDrive account configured, you may not get this functionality until you set up your OneDrive account. Once again, this feature lets you choose the period that a file is on your local storage before it is deleted. Choose the same  1, 14, 30, and 60 days options based on your preferences. You may disable the option to delete these files as well.

Apart from those options, StorageSense also lets you configure deletion of files when your storage space is running out.

What advantages does StorageSense offer you?

Now that we are discussing storage sense and its functionality, it can be an excellent opportunity to understand the advantages that the storage sense feature offers you. One of the thoughtful features added as part of the Windows 10 Creators Update, StorageSense has been much helpful for your needs in taking care of the unneeded files and other older temporary files.

Here are a few advantages that may be worthwhile to consider –

It helps you save time

You do not need to clean up the files manually. StorageSense can be configured to clean up your data automatically. Of course, you can even stop it from doing it and go with the manual mode for deleting the temporary and older files; you can configure the feature to delete the files once and forget the task altogether.

The tool can continue completing the task as per the schedule you have configured. This is something equivalent to the scheduled tasks we are used to in the earlier versions of Windows, but with a difference. The feature is not complicated and provides you with a one-stop solution to clear your older files.

It avoids the need for third-party tools

You no longer need to go with the third party tools for clearing up your temporary and unneeded files automatically. Third party apps used for the feature can be risky enough, given the fact that they may make use of the data for some other purpose.

The Controversy related to the CCleaner, which is one of the best cleaning tools should be a clear indication here. You would indeed want to be on the safer side, and this is exactly what makes it positive with the built-in functionality coming straight from Microsoft.

The Parting Thoughts

That was about what StorageSense feature on the Windows 10 will offer you and the type of files it can delete from your hard drive. It is indeed a perfect tool for your needs, and we assume the feature will be updated in the future updates to make it more powerful.

We hope this answers your question on “What exactly is deleted with Windows 10 Storage Sense?” in this article. Your questions or suggestions are welcome in the comments section down below. Thanks for visiting!

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