C drive is suddenly full

Hello,
I'm running Windows 10 (version 2004). Today I was using my laptop as I normally do, and suddenly I got a notification from windows letting me know it turned on Storage Sense. I found it very silly as I knew I had more than 50gb of free disk space on my C drive. My C drive is an SSD. So I checked my C drive and now suddenly, I only have 5gb of free space. I did not do any special thing that should've sucked up all of my drive space in these few days. Analyzing the C drive with WizTree, it turns out that the System Volume Information folder is taking up 78gb on the disk. I think that is far from normal behavior... in addition I do not have system restore enabled. I looked up on the internet but did not find any useful data or fixes. It might be useful to know that my laptop is from Dell. Dell has its proprietary system backup software but I don't think that is related to the massive System Volume Information folder because I can see a Dell backup folder and that is roughly 20gb.
Should I remove the System Volume Information folder? What is the culprit? How can I fix it?
Help would be extremely appreciated.
Thanks

Do not remove the System Volume Information folder unless you really want to re-install Windows!

I would start with option 2 here:
Open and Use Disk Cleanup in Windows 10

I find the command line command offers more options. I usually select everything on the list. However, there was 1 or 2 older versions of Windows 10 that included "Downloads" in the list and erased the user's downloads folder. So if you see an option in the list that says only "Downloads", don't select it, but "Downloaded program files" is fine to select.

I also like to run:
dism /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup /resetbase

/Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup [/ResetBase [/Defer]]
Use /StartComponentCleanup to clean up the superseded components and reduce
the size of the component store. Use /ResetBase to reset the base of
superseded components, which can further reduce the component store size.
Use /Defer with /ResetBase to defer long-running cleanup operations to the
next automatic maintenance.

NavyLCDR said:

Do not remove the System Volume Information folder unless you really want to re-install Windows!

I would start with option 2 here:
Open and Use Disk Cleanup in Windows 10

I find the command line command offers more options. I usually select everything on the list. However, there was 1 or 2 older versions of Windows 10 that included "Downloads" in the list and erased the user's downloads folder. So if you see an option in the list that says only "Downloads", don't select it, but "Downloaded program files" is fine to select.

I just did that, but it only removed almost 2.5gb of files.

Here is how the System Volume Information folder looks like

Looks to be System Restore stuff, all of it in the last 10 days;

half of it on Jan 9 at 5:12:12 pm.

39.2 gb.

ignatzatsonic said:

Looks to be System Restore stuff, all of it in the last 10 days;

half of it on Jan 9 at 5:12:12 pm.

39.2 gb.

It's really really weird. Because I have system restore disabled.

Also I just checked Dell's recovery software and it seems that it is capped to use 15gb of disk space max.

I'm really puzzled how this could've happened...

I have no idea about Dell's backup stuff. It may or may not have any connection to System Restore.

Do you have any System Restore points actually available? Go through its configuration and open all menus.

ignatzatsonic said:

I have no idea about Dell's backup stuff. It may or may not have any connection to System Restore.

Do you have any System Restore points actually available? Go through its configuration and open all menus.

No, I don't have any.

I would try turning on System Restore, then use configure to remove any restore points (if it finds any) and see if the folder reduces in size. If that works, then just turn off SR.