Download this tool and set it to run regularly.
Most people know a desktop PC needs cleaning now and then. The usual advice is physical: Open the case, clear out the dust, check the fans. We’ve covered that in our guide to cleaning and organizing your Windows PC. But there’s a second chore that gets far less attention: the junk piling up inside Windows itself. Microsoft ships a few tools for it, and we wanted to know how well they work, so we ran a scan-only test of each on the same drive. Nothing was cleaned, and nothing was deleted. What follows is what each tool offered to remove.
The three tools Microsoft offers
We tested three tools on a single 1TB C: drive with only about 4 percent free.
Disk Cleanup is the oldest. Microsoft has shipped it with every version of Windows since Windows 98, and it has barely changed: Pick a drive, wait for a short scan, tick the usual suspects (temporary files, thumbnail caches, the Recycle Bin) and press OK.
Storage Sense lives in Settings > System > Storage. Instead of a one-off scan, it’s meant to work in the background, emptying the Recycle Bin, clearing Downloads and removing temporary files on a schedule.
Microsoft PC Manager is a free, separate install that bundles a one-click boost, a storage cleaner and a few extras. Its storage page runs a deeper scan and sorts what it finds into categories.
What the scans found
Disk Cleanup offered to free a meager 1.66GB of junk. Storage Sense offered the exact same 1.66GB, while PC Manager listed 26GB, but that figure includes things that aren’t actually junk, such as 15.5GB of items it left unticked, so it overstates the real total.
To see which number to trust, we measured the drive manually and found that it holds roughly 20GB of real junk. Disk Cleanup and Storage Sense found about 8 percent of it, while PC Manager’s list covered about 90 percent of the actual junk files. The biggest offenders were a 9.25GB NVIDIA shader cache, about 5GB of Chrome cache across four profiles and 2.2GB of app crash dumps. Both Windows tools missed all of them. PC Manager found them, along with a few caches that developer tools like Python and Node.js leave behind.
Disk Cleanup is redundant, and Storage Sense is asleep
There is little reason left to run Disk Cleanup. Microsoft says the tool overlaps in function with Storage Sense, and the test shows why: Storage Sense’s “Temporary files” list matched Disk Cleanup’s exactly, category for category. Same engine, same cautious rules, and Storage Sense does more on top.
Storage Sense is the better tool, but it’s built to work quietly in the background, and on the test drive it did nothing. Windows reported “0 bytes” cleaned in the past month. By default, it only runs when disk space is low, and apparently Windows doesn’t count 3.9 percent free as low. Items from six months ago were still sitting in the Recycle Bin.
The fix is a setting. Open Settings > System > Storage > Storage Sense and change Run Storage Sense from During low free disk space to every day, week or month. The Recycle Bin and Downloads thresholds can be set anywhere from 0 to 60 days.
Microsoft PC Manager sees what Windows misses
PC Manager was by far the most thorough tool in the test. It preticked 8.9GB as safe to remove, mostly browser caches, crash dumps and temporary files. It left the NVIDIA cache (9GB) and Python (2.7GB) unticked, so the decision on those stays with the user, which is very sensible.
PC Manager also offers a Manage large files option. It lists the biggest files on your drive, so you can decide which are worth keeping and which can go. Nothing is judged for you; the app just shows where the space is going. On our test drive, it found 238GB of files that were bigger than 10MB. It isn’t perfect. It nags about “Boost” and health checks, and some of what it frees is cache that will grow back anyway. Still, it’s a good option to have.
Uninstall properly, skip CCleaner
When most people want to free up space, they open Installed apps, pick the ones they no longer use and hit Uninstall. The catch is that many programs don’t leave cleanly. Folders, caches and registry entries often stay behind. Revo Uninstaller Free handles that better: It runs the program’s own uninstaller first, then scans for leftover files, folders and registry entries and offers to remove them.
CCleaner used to be the default recommendation, but skip it. It has since turned into bloatware, and its trust problems are on record: In 2018, Avast’s Piriform pulled version 5.45 after it was found to be collecting more usage data than users expected.
A realistic setup
If you want to maintain a clean computer, you don’t need much. Set Storage Sense to run weekly or monthly, and do a PC Manager deep cleanup once a month. When you remove an app, use Revo Uninstaller so nothing is left behind.
Don’t expect miracles, though. Removing every byte of junk on our test drive only moved free space from about 4 percent to about 6 or 7 percent. To really clean up space, you’ll have to clear out the usual culprits: video games, video files, photo libraries and the like. If your drive is nearly full, use PC Manager’s large-file finder to see where it all went, then decide what’s worth keeping. Our guide to seeing what’s taking up space on your Windows PC walks through the rest.
