How to free up hard drive space

I've got a computer with a ~120G SSD and a larger HDD. I've made a real effort to keep anything discretionary off the SSD, but as I'm a (new) developer there are lots of installs, and the space keeps creeping up. The plan had been to install a larger SSD, but now that Covid is on the computer stores are closed and I don't dare try to install it myself.

Wondering if someone can point me toward info about how to minimize hard drive space - like finding any sort of hidden caches, etc. Thanks!

On version 1903 (OS Build 18362.720)

Get rid of any System Restore points and don't make any more.

Don't use hibernation, which should save a few GB.

There's likely some .log files and .tmp files you can do without.

Might help to reduce the size of your swap file at least temporarily although Windows manages it well.

Putting in an SSD is no more of an issue than pulling 2 cables off of the old drive and attaching them to the new SSD.

Here are several good articles that should help you. The first one is particularly good with a comprehensive list o items you can do to save storage space:

Free Up Drive Space in Windows 10
Turn On or Off Storage Sense Automatically Free Up Space in Windows 10
Free Up Disk Space Now with Storage Sense in Windows 10
Automatically Make OneDrive Files On-Demand Online-only in Windows 10

Apart from the obvious, to move your data to a larger disk, you can also permanently move the relevant folders (Downloads, Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos) to the larger disk so all your files are automatically saved to the respective folder, instead of the SSD. To do that, first create the folder in the other disk (for example D:\Downloads). Then go to your home folder (should be your username, or c:\users\username). Right-click on the folder you want to move (Downloads) and select "Move to", then browse to the new folder. All you have to do it move all your downloads to the new folder once and then they will be automatically saved at the new folder. You could also manually set the swap file to d:\ instead of c:\. Then cleanup your hard disk (SSD) and also check the box to compress all files.

spapakons said:

Right-click on the folder you want to move (Downloads) and select....

...."Properties>Location", select 'Move...'. and browse to the new folder.

Yes, I was writing from memory, so I missed some steps. But you get the idea...

See the links that hsehestedt posted earlier in the thread.
An additional option is to move files to the cloud.
Each of these has some free storage: one drive, drop box, or google drive

gntsketches said:

Wondering if someone can point me toward info about how to minimize hard drive space - like finding any sort of hidden caches...

See @hsehestedt 's links, particularly the first one.

I generally find the most significant hidden consumers of drive space are Restore points and Windows Update backups, the latter can be cleaned up with Disk Clean up's 'Clean up system files'. Between then they can consume tens of GB.