How to free up disk space after installing Windows 10 May 2020 Update

With Windows 10 May 2020 Update now available, many people are rushing to install it. You may be surprised at just how much disk space you’ve lost.

This is particularly true for anyone with an SSD, which tend to be smaller or harddrive with small space, but there are steps you can take to claim back this space and free up several gigabytes. Here’s what you need to know.

Windows 10 updates do not always do a great job of tidying up after themselves, but thankfully there are various tools built into the operating system that can help you to take care of things manually. The first of these is Disk Clean-up:

Click the Start button, type Disk Clean-up and click the shortcut to the app or press windows+R key and type “cleanmgr” in the box
Click Clean up system files and wait for your system to be analyzed
Scroll through the list of files that can be deleted, selecting everything you’re happy to get rid of, look out for the Previous Windows installation(s) option in particular
Click OK and wait for clean-up to complete

There are other ways to clean up after the installation of Windows 10 May 2020 Update, including using Storage Sense:

Click Settings and head to System
Click the Storage link to the left, and then click Configure Storage Sense or run it now
In the Free up space now section, check the box labelled Delete previous versions of Windows and then click Clean now.

Another option is to make use of the temporary files clean-up feature of Storage settings:

Click Settings and head to System
Click the Storage link to the left, and then click Temporary files
Just as with Disk Clean-up, you can then select various types of files to delete, including Previous Windows installations, by simply checking the relevant boxes
With your selections made, click Remove files