Disk Cleanup is Broken.. How Do I Fix It?

yahanna said:

Whenever I use disk cleanup, the process takes forever to clean up my drive. How can I fix this?

If you are cleaning up system files then the analysis and the clean up of the Windows Update backups is by far the most time consuming task. Running Disk Clean up after a cumulative update is inevitably going to take some time.

There's no short cut I'm afraid. The windows update analysis and/or clean up takes a long time however you run it. For example, the analysis using Dism from a command prompt (Admin) will take just as long as it does in Disk Clean up.

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore

Analyze Component Store (WinSxS folder) in Windows 10 | Tutorials

There are default settings for silent cleanup which cleans
downloaded program files
temporary internet files
thumbnails

Task scheduler is regularly performing the silent cleanup.

If you perform a manual clean there are additional boxes that can be checked for cleaning:
system created windows error reporting
directX shader cache
delivery optimization files
downloads
recycle bin
temporary files

The duration of time may depend upon the contents of the other files.

If disk cleanup is not working properly you can see if an in place upgrade repair provides improvement.

Cleaning up after the monthly Windows updates does take a while even when using a SSD

Removing Windows Updates leftovers takes time no matter the hardware. It's like issuing a dism /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup

It just takes some time to complete.

yahanna said:

Whenever I use disk cleanup, the process takes forever to clean up my drive. How can I fix this?

The only way to fix the performance problem is don't do it. The reason is takes so long, each line of code + Module has to be updated in the WinSxS files. This is a huge directory within the windows directory maintained to document what was changed since the last Feature update. Take a look at it, its HUGE and gets bigger after each CU, Defender Update. etc just about everything. Windows will eventually run the process to update WinSxS and clear out the Win update directory, in the background and will control its CPU/IO usage. This is another reason that I believe why they need to perform regular scheduled Feature updates. During a feature update, that directory gets wiped clean and starts over again with this features base line code. Also the longer updates are applied to WinSxS, the longer they take to complete. I really don't know why MS does it, but to me its a poor implementation.

Maybe somebody here with more knowledge can further explain it ?