How to Check Free Hard Drive Space Windows 11 10 8 +
How to Check Free Hard Drive Space (Windows 11, 10, 8, +) GA S REGULAR Menu Lifewire Tech for Humans Newsletter! Search Close GO Software & Apps > Windows 251 251 people found this article helpful
wmic logicaldisk get size,freespace,caption
How to Check Free Hard Drive Space in Windows
Here's how to find your drive's capacity, used space, or free space
By Tim Fisher Tim Fisher Senior Vice President & Group General Manager, Tech & Sustainability Emporia State University Tim Fisher has more than 30 years' of professional technology experience. He's been writing about tech for more than two decades and serves as the VP and General Manager of Lifewire. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on September 6, 2022 Reviewed by Jessica Kormos Reviewed by Jessica Kormos Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College Jessica Kormos is a writer and editor with 15 years' experience writing articles, copy, and UX content for Tecca.com, Rosenfeld Media, and many others. lifewire's editorial guidelines Tweet Share Email Tweet Share EmailIn This Article
Expand Jump to a Section Performance Suffers on a Full Hard Drive Check Free Space in Windows Check Free Space Using Command Prompt How Much Free Space Do You Need Calculate 10% Free Space See What's Using all the SpaceWhat to Know
Checking free space on a drive is helpful if you suspect it's filling up or you're getting random error messages.Open This PC, Computer, or My Computer (depending on your OS), right-click the drive, choose Properties.Follow the same steps for hard drives as well as network drives and external drives like flash drives. You can't just add stuff to a drive forever, be it your main hard drive, the little flash drive in your pocket, or the giant external hard drive on your desk. Even an arguably humongous 16 TB hard disk has a limit: 16 TB! As crazy as it sounds, it, too, can fill up. True, it'll take two million high-quality photos to do it, but "only" about 150 feature-length 4K movies. 6 Things That are Taking up Too Much Space on Your PCPerformance Suffers on a Full Hard Drive
Regardless, you get the idea—you may need to check the free space on a drive from time to time, especially if it starts to slow down or act funny, which is very often the not-so-clear consequence of too much stuff in a single place. Unfortunately, especially in Windows operating systems, you don't get a friendly "Hey, your hard drive is almost full!" warning. Instead, you get strange behavior, cryptic error messages, or serious problems like a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).How to Check Free Hard Drive Space in Windows
Fortunately, it's super easy to check how much free space you have on any of your drives, and it only takes a minute or two. Maddy Price / Lifewire These steps work for Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. In Windows 11 or Windows 10, select the Start button, followed by File Explorer (the small folder icon). If you don't see it, check under the All apps or Windows System folder, or type file explorer into the search box. In Windows 8 or Windows 10, search for this pc and then select This PC. In Windows 7 or Windows Vista, select the Start button, followed by Computer. In Windows XP, go to Start and then My Computer. Learn what version of Windows you have if you're unsure. On the left-hand side of File Explorer or Windows Explorer (depending on your version of Windows), make sure This PC, Computer, or My Computer is selected (again, based on your version of Windows). Windows 10 This PC. If you don't see anything on the left side of this screen, open the View menu and enable the Navigation pane. In older versions of Windows, go instead to Organize > Layout > Navigation Pane (7 and Vista), or View > Explorer Bar > Folders (XP). On the right-hand side, find the drive on which you want to know how much free space is left. In Windows 11/10/8, all storage devices are listed in the Devices and drives area. In Windows 7/Vista/XP, Hard Disk Drives and Devices with Removable Storage are listed separately. In newer versions of Windows, you can see right under the drive listing how much free space is left on it, as well as the total size of the drive, in a format like this: Local Disk (C:) [storage space indicator] 535 GB free of 931 GB If that's all you need to know then you're done! However, there is a bit more information about your drive's capacity buried just a bit deeper: To see more, right-click or tap-and-hold the drive you want more storage space information on, and then choose Properties. In the General tab, you'll see all the important details about the storage device you're looking at, reported in bytes as well as rounded GB. Used space is the sum total of every piece of data on this device.Free space is the difference in the total formatted capacity of the device and the sum total of every piece of data being stored on it. This number indicates how much more storage you're allowed to fill.Capacity is the total formatted capacity of the drive.Also there is a pie graph, showing used vs free space on the drive, helpful for visualizing how much space you're using on this hard drive or other device. You should now know exactly how much hard drive space is available on your computer. If you're running low, delete files you don't need or move them to a different hard drive that has more free space. Why Advertised Storage Does Not Match Real Data CapacityHow to Check Free Hard Drive Space Using Command Prompt
Another way to check free space is with Command Prompt. The results aren't as easy to read because the values are represented in bytes instead of gigabytes, but it's still possible with this command:wmic logicaldisk get size,freespace,caption