toppwin10 here.
I recently downloaded Windows 10. In the process, a multitude of graphics files that I have no use for, e.g., sky shots, barren desert, vintage architecture, were downloaded. They are dragging my system performance down.
I would like to delete all of them. How do I do this?
Thank you.
Welcome to TenForums toppwin10
It sounds like you are talking about Windows Spotlight, a daily changing background for your lock screen and (optionally) sign in screen.
You can stop the downloads by choosing something other than Spotlight as your lock screen.
Change Lock Screen Background in Windows 10 | Tutorials
I am surprised you feel system performance is affected, but if you want to delete all the Spotlight pictures then resetting Spotlight will do that for you.
Thanks very much, Bree (and friends),
When I go to C:\Windows\Web\Screen as directed in another user's guidance included in your response tree, I am given five files: img100.jpg - img105.jpg These are not the files I wish to delete.
What I am trying to get rid of are files with addresses such as 0.23,0.14,0.08,0.14.jpg . These files appear when I navigate Start > Photos > Collections and
get the mass of jpg files (not including my own! I want to keep my own! ) which I do not want to keep. It is the myriad of Microsoft provided files that I have no apparent use for.
Sample: Another one of these files, in addition to the one I have provided above, is found when I navigate Start > Photos > Collections > August, 2009.
It is photo 3333001.jpg
I don't know what these are but I'm sure I don't think I want to keep them. They would appear to be used in some application in which I have no interest. :)
If I haven't been too confusing, could you help me now that I 've provided this additional information?
Most appreciative,
toppwin10
The Photos app searches your computer for images and generates an index for them, this index is what you see as 'Collections'. Unfortunately just saying a photo is in your Collection tells us nothing about where on your PC Photos has found this image.
By default, Photos just looks in your Pictures folder. It sounds like you may have changed the settings in Photos to search the whole of your PC, maybe the whole of C:\ or at least places it shouldn't normally be looking (eg. the Program Files folder). If that is the case you certainly don't want to delete these images. They would likely be a necessary part of your other apps, deleting them may break those apps.
However, you equally well don't want to see all these other images listed in your Photos app's collections. Open Photos and check its settings, remove all folders from the Sources list except your Pictures folder and (if you use OneDrive) your OneDrive\Pictures folder. This should set you back to just seeing your own pictures in the Photos collections. To do that, see Option One in this tutorial.
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