How to use Storage Sense to free up space on your Windows 11 system

Here’s how to use Windows 11’s Storage Sense feature, which can help you keep your storage under control.

When Windows 11 runs out of storage space, you can manually delete temporary files, clean the Recycle Bin, and do a lot more using different programs
. However, you can set Storage Sense to automatically monitor and eliminate unused files instead of switching between tools and tasks.

Storage Sense is not entirely new.
This feature, which has been available for some time, was created to automatically eliminate temporary system and program files, junk files already present in the Recycle Bin, and items that may no longer be needed from the Downloads folder.
To free up more space on your computer, it also allows you to convert files already stored in OneDrive to online-only files.

This guide will show you how to activate and modify Storage Sense settings so that Windows 11 can automatically execute a series of rules to free up space.

How to activate Storage Sense in Windows 11 system

Follow these steps to make Storage Sense available on Windows 11 system.

1. Launch Settings.
2. Switch to Storage.
3. Click the Storage Sense switch under the Storage Management column.

The function will work automatically when you finish the instructions and use the predefined parameters.

Managing Storage Sense in Windows 11

Follow these steps to set your computer’s Storage Sense settings so that space is automatically freed up.

1. Launch Settings.
2. Switch to Storage.
3. Click on the Storage Sense setting in the Storage Management section.
4. Make sure the Clean up temporary system files and application files check box is selected.
5. The Automatic clean-up user content switch should be on.
6. Use the Run Storage Sense setting and select the During low disk space option in the “Configure cleanup schedules” section.
7. This is optional, but to choose which files to delete based on their age, use the Delete files in my recycle bin setting :
   – Never.
   – 1 day.
   – 14 days.
   – 30 days.
   – 60 days.
8. Use the Delete files setting in my downloads to specify how long a file must remain unchanged before it is designated for deletion.
9. You can find the key data that you previously downloaded from the Internet in the Downloads folder. Therefore, it is advised to browse the folder and copy any files you want to keep before using this setting.
10. To free up space on your computer, choose when files that are already synced to the cloud should be changed to online-only files using OneDrive.
11. An internet connection is required to reopen files after using this feature, but they will still appear in the OneDrive folder.

When you’re done, Sense will automatically launch based on your setup whenever the disk runs out of available memory or space to free up space.

The Launch Storage Sense button can now also be used to quickly free up space on your computer.

Storage Sense offered a choice to remove data from the previous configuration after an update in earlier iterations of Windows.
However, the option is now only available on the Temporary Files page.

See more on the blog.