To make your Windows 11 fast and clear out excess storage, you may need to find large files and remove or delete them.
In this article, we’ll explain two quick ways to locate large files and clear them to improve your Windows OS performance.
Method 1: File explorer
This is probably the easiest method to find large Windows 11 and 10 files. You must navigate to File Explorer’s toolbox at the top.
Now, click on Sort, hover your mouse over More, and then select Size. When you are done, you’ll see that the largest file is located in the first place, followed by the files in descending order of size.
Select the files you want to delete or remove to an external storage and then press Delete or Ctrl + X as you desire.
Also read: What is Copilot preview in Windows 11?
Method 2: Find large files using the Command Prompt
Another method is to use the Command Prompt to find large files in Windows 11. For this, you need to familiarise yourself with the working of Command Prompt; hence, it is unsuitable for novices.
You must specify the drive path and then enter commands to specify the file-size filter. In this method, you will create a text file with a repository of files larger than the file size you mentioned in the command.
Step 1: Open the Command Prompt by typing cmd in the toolbar search box.
Step 2: To navigate to any drive, type the following command: cd C:\ If you want to navigate to the D drive, for example, use the same command and substitute D instead of C.
Step 3: Now, type the following command:
forfiles /S /M * /C "cmd /c if @fsize GEQ <size> echo @path > files.txt"
In the above command, substitute <size> with the file size that you want as the minimum base. This means that all the files in the text file will be larger than this file size.
However, the size should be mentioned should be in bytes. The conversion of various file sizes in bytes is as follows:
- 1 megabyte (MB) equals 1,048,576 bytes.
- 1 gigabyte (GB) equals 1,073,741,824 bytes.
You can also change the file name of the text file by changing the ‘files’ in ‘files.txt’.
To search the file, head to the storage drives and search for the file in the search box.
Also read: How to allocate SSD in Windows 11?
Method 3: Use third-party apps
You can also use various third-party apps to find large files on Windows 11. Apps such as WizTree, WinDirStat, and SpaceSniffer do a good job of filtering and displaying files by size.
In conclusion, finding and locating large files on Windows 11 is easy and it requires just a few moments of your time. You can use File Explorer, Command Prompt or third-party apps for the job.
