YOUR USER PROFILE FOLDER (C:\USERS\[USERNAME]) Temp
The ‘C:\users’ folder lets you remove junk from all user accounts on your PC, but to avoid making unauthorised changes to other people’s settings it’s best to stick with your own user-profile folder. Here are the items you can safely delete.
Separate to the C:\windows\temp folder mentioned on page 51, this folder contains temporary files created by programs rather than Windows itself. Some of these come from Microsoft tools such as Edge, Office and Powertoys, while others are generated by third-party software, including your web browser, image editor and system utilities.
Whatever the source, the Temp folder can grow to a formidable size if not regularly emptied, and it’s not easy to find – your file manager must be set to show hidden files and you need to browse to C:\users\[username]\
Appdata\local\temp. You can access the folder more quickly by typing %temp% into the Windows search box or Run command (press Windows key+r).
Once you have the Temp folder open, clear its contents by pressing Ctrl+a to select all, then click Delete and Yes – you won’t be able to remove files that are currently in use. Alternatively, open the Storage cleaner in Windows Settings and click ‘Temporary files’. Select the ‘Temporary files’ option on the next screen then click ‘Remove files’.
To set Windows to clean the Temp folder automatically, switch on the Storage Sense feature ( 1 in our screenshot above). Click the option to configure its settings and tick ‘Delete temporary files that my apps aren’t using’ 2 or ‘Cleanup of temporary files’ (in Windows 11). You can choose to run Storage Sense every day, week or month, or when your drive space is low. Click ‘Clean now’ or ‘Run Storage Sense now’ to perform an immediate clean-up.
3D Objects
Your user-profile folder contains lots of familiar and important sub-folders – including Desktop, Documents and
Pictures – but 3D Objects certainly isn’t one. It was introduced in 2017 as a place to store 3D projects you created using Paint 3D and Mixed Reality Viewer, and was listed in File Explorer’s sidebar as one of the shortcuts under This PC.
Microsoft later removed the sidebar option, but not the 3D Objects folder, which remains in the profile folder in Windows 10 and 11. Unless you have a collection of 3D projects, it’s completely safe to delete by selecting or rightclicking the folder and choosing Delete.
Downloads
Your Downloads folder is likely to be packed with files you no longer need, including program installers and ZIP archives, images and videos, and PDFS, spreadsheets and documents. This can result in it becoming much larger than you realise – 2.6GB on our Windows 10 PC – with downloads dating back months or even years.