Memory Talk

Marking22 · **Posted:** May 2nd, 2012, 1:10 pm

Right now I am trying to figure out which folder on my computer has the most memory being used. I am trying to delete useless stuff to clear up some memory on my computer. Anyone got tips to this process?

Adbot · **Posted:** May 2nd, 2012, 1:10 pm

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

Memory or hdd space? Or is that the same thing? I've done this occasionally.

One thing to do is open "Uninstall Programs" in the Control Panel. Sort the list by space used. A lot of things don't list how much space they take up, but even if it doesn't show how much space a program takes up, a simple check through the list will help you spot get rid of some programs right away.

Another thing to use is SequoiaView. I've only used it a few times before. It basically analyzes your hard drive and then converts it into an image of blocks. Big blocks represent bigger programs, small blocks smaller programs. This is better for getting rid of bigger folders since the smaller less used ones are harder to spot.

Anyways, that's all the tech knowledge I have on the matter. Otherwise, just go through your "All Programs" list from the start menu and uninstall any programs that stick out there.

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

Memory = RAM
Space / Size generally refer to a drive, be it a HDD (hard disk drive AKA one that spins) or SSD (solid state drive)

In any case, Duke's recommendations seem spot on. Another program that I'd recommend versus SequoiaView is WinDirStat. WinDirStat will analyze a drive or a specific directory and show you pictographically what items are taking up the most space. On the right side after scanning you can see what file types are taking up the most room on the drive/directory.

Just be careful when deleting directories / files at random, as some larger files could be necessary for your computer.

For a quick way to free up some space, right click on your drive and select properties. Go to Disk Cleanup, and wait for the window to load. If it has a button that says "Clean up System Files" or similar, click on that. Otherwise, there is a second tab up top called "More Options". Click on More Options, and then "Clean Up" under "System Restore and Shadow Copies". This can free up quite a bit of space while deleting older system restore images that were created whenever you installed a program or did a Windows Update. It'll keep the most recent image by default, so you should be fine. I've seen this clear up anywhere between a few hundred megabytes (would have likely been done prior to this, as this is a very lowball number) to ~40GB on a computer that had never done this since ~2009 in 2012.

A program like CCLeaner will do quite a bit by running the normal scan, so I'd look into that as well. You can also clear out system restore images under Tools=>System Restore, so that makes the process nice and simple.