5 Best Methods to Delete Temp Files in Windows 10.

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Anyone who has to use their system for long hours knows how exhausting and annoying it can be when your system starts lagging. Even worse when it doesn’t have enough space to store important files or games. Fortunately, these can be avoided beforehand just by making sure that your temporary files are cleared out of your PC.

In case your PC is having low performance or low space such that you can’t delete any files that are already present. Then don’t worry. You can delete temp files from your PC. This article will show you how to delete temp files in Windows 10.

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What Are Temporary Files And Why It Is Necessary To Delete Temp Files?

Temporary files or Temp files are those files that are created in Windows “Temp” folder, by various applications to hold information temporarily. Usually, Windows temporary files are identified by checking whether any file name ends with “.temp”. These files are created by both Operating systems (OS) and by various running computer applications.

Temp files are usually the leftover files by different computer applications. They are used for providing virtual memory to the operating system or to hold data or information for running applications. These leftover files can even be some backup folder that was created by the Microsoft word office for ongoing work. Temporary files do not cause any serious harm to your PCs. However, Windows 10 users do delete temp files for mainly two reasons:

To regain storage space

Over time temporary files take up a lot of space in your disk. As a result, when you want to save any important file or game you end up running out of space. By deleting these files you can restore your disk storage space.

To improve the performance of the PC

Accumulating a lot of temporary files can cause your systems to lag. Loading and searching these files can hinder your PC’s performance and slow down the running applications. Hence it is suggested to periodically remove these files from your system.

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How To Delete Temp Files In Windows 10 Easily?

Temporary files or temp files can be cleared from your system in many ways. Here, we have provided some of the easy and efficient ways to delete temp files from your Windows 10 system.

Method 1: Deleting temp files using system settings

First, select on the “Start” that can be seen on the taskbar. Then, go to “Settings”.
Select “System”. After selecting ”System”, search for “Storage” from the left panel of the screen. Click on it.
After opening the “Storage” page, choose the local drive that you want to clean.
Scroll down. Then click on the “Temporary Files”. In case you don’t see the temporary files option, select the “Show more categories”.
Once the results are displayed, you can select the items you want to delete and then click on “Remove files”.

Method 2: Deleting temp files with disk clean up

On the taskbar, you will see a search box saying “Type here to search”. Type “cleanup”, inside that search box.
In doing this, at the top of the search, you will see “Disk Cleanup”. Select “Disk Cleanup”.
Now, from the drop-down menu select the disk you want to clean. You will have to do this manually, if you have multiple physical drives, or else you will be automatically taken to the next step.
From the options displayed, select the types of files you want to get rid of.
Then click the “OK” button to manually delete the temporary files and folders from your drive.

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Method 3: Deleting temp folders

Open the “Run” dialogue box by pressing the Windows key and R on your keyboard. Then type “%temp%” (don’t add the quotes while typing this). Then click on the “OK” button.
After doing step 1, your Windows 10 must open up the “Temp” folder containing all the temporary files that Windows 10 stores in your system.
Select all the folders and files by either tapping on the “Select All” option or by pressing “Ctrl” and “A” together. Then press the “Delete” key on your keyboard to remove all the files to the Recycle Bin.
Then, go to the Recycle Bin and click on the “Empty Recycle Bin” option. Confirm if asked.

Method 4: Deleting temp files via Storage Sense

Windows 10 provides its users with a built-in service that automatically deletes the temporary files. This user-friendly feature is called “Storage Sense” in your device. By default, in all the Windows 10 systems, it is turned off. But it can be turned on to delete temp files stored on your system automatically. You can follow these easy steps to turn on the “Storage Sense”.

To delete temp files in Windows 10 automatically, go to “Settings”.
Then go to “System” and then to “Storage”.
On the top of your screen, you will see the “Configure Storage sense or run it now” option. Select that.
By doing so, you will be able to configure it manually and choose how often and when you would like to delete temp files in Windows 10.
Now, turn on the Storage Sense feature “On”.
You can even run the “Storage Sense” on-demand by tapping on the “Clean Now” button.

Storage Sense can even clear out the local cache files of your cloud storage services like iCloud, One Drive, and more.

Method 5: Delete temp files using command prompt

Go to the search box on your taskbar and type “command prompt” or “cmd”.
On the right side of your search results, you can see “Run as administrator” under your command prompt icon. Select that.
Once you select that, you might get a pop-up message of “User Account Control”, to give access by clicking on “yes”.
After your command prompt opens, type in “del/q/f/s%TEMP%\*” (do not type the double quotes) and hit enter.
This should delete all the temporary files from the “Temp” folder on your PC.

By following one of the above methods you should be able to delete temp files from your Windows 10 system successfully and enjoy the smooth performance of your system.