{"id":4821,"date":"2008-03-25T18:05:10","date_gmt":"2008-03-25T17:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/how-to-free-up-disk-space-with-scanner\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T02:33:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T09:33:04","slug":"how-to-free-up-disk-space-with-scanner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/how-to-free-up-disk-space-with-scanner\/","title":{"rendered":"How to free up disk space with Scanner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-images.sftcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2008\/03\/scanner00.png\" alt=\"free up disk space with Scanner\" align=\"right\" \/>No matter how many external hard drives I buy, no matter how big they are, I always end up getting that stupid Windows warning message: &#8220;<em><strong>Low Disk Space<\/strong>. You are running out of disk space on Local disk. To free space on this drive by deleting old or unnecessary files, click here&#8230;<\/em>&#8221; How is that possible? I had tons of available gigs just some weeks ago&#8230; Well, I guess it&#8217;s the logical consequence of having a few fully working P2P apps installed on my PC, together with an incomprehensible dislike towards the Delete key. So, what can I do now?<\/p>\n<p>The easiest solution is simply uninstalling those programs and games you don&#8217;t use that often, and also delete as many unnecessary files as you can. The problem comes when trying to find those files. You can either start by erasing many small-sized ones or go straight for those that take the most space, which is usually the fastest way to free up disk space.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nBefore hunting for those disk-space hogs, I strongly advise you to do some basic disk cleaning with a tool like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ccleaner.com\/\">CCleaner<\/a>. If you&#8217;ve never used such a tool it&#8217;ll probably recover a lot of disk space for you. Once you&#8217;ve used a cleaning tool, it&#8217;s time to get yourself to work with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.steffengerlach.de\/freeware\/index.html\">Scanner<\/a>, a great disk analysis app that will help you find the largest files on your system. Here&#8217;s how to use it:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1.<\/strong> Launch the program (no installation required) and it&#8217;ll automatically begin scanning all your drives. Select the one you want to analyze so that this process won&#8217;t take too long.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-images.sftcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2008\/03\/scanner01.jpg\" alt=\"free up disk space with Scanner\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>2.<\/strong> Now it&#8217;s time to read the analysis results. They&#8217;re presented as concentric circles, each one of them belonging to a different folder on your system. The bigger the circle, the more space that folder is taking in your disk.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-images.sftcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2008\/03\/scanner02.jpg\" alt=\"free up disk space with Scanner\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>3.<\/strong> Click on any area of the circular map and you&#8217;ll open a more detailed view. For example, by clicking on the Program Files or My Documents you&#8217;ll probably find lots of folders and files you can safely get rid of.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-images.sftcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2008\/03\/scanner03.jpg\" alt=\"free up disk space with Scanner\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>4.<\/strong> When you finally find a file that you want to erase, right click on the area that represents that file and, among other options, you&#8217;ll be able to recycle it (i.e. send it to the Recycle Bin) or simply remove it from your hard drive, if you&#8217;re sure you don&#8217;t want to keep that file anymore.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-images.sftcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2008\/03\/scanner04.jpg\" alt=\"free up disk space with Scanner\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now you can move on to other folders, analyzing them with Scanner and obtaining a very visual report that helps you easily identify those files that are taking way too much space on your disk. In this way you&#8217;ll be able to gain some time before having to buy a larger hard drive \u2013 something eventually you&#8217;ll end up doing anyway, won&#8217;t you?<\/p>\n<p>[Via: <a href=\"http:\/\/onsoftware.softonic.com\/otra-vez-el-disco-duro-lleno\">ONSoftware Spain<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No matter how many external hard drives I buy, no matter how big they are, I always end up getting that stupid Windows warning message: &#8220;Low Disk Space. You are running out of disk space on Local disk. To free space on this drive by deleting old or unnecessary files, click here&#8230;&#8221; How is that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/how-to-free-up-disk-space-with-scanner\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;How to free up disk space with Scanner&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2011,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":1},"categories":[2441],"tags":[2658],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-4821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionscanner"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336257,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4821\/revisions\/336257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4821"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=4821"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=4821"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=4821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}