How to Quickly Find Largest Files on PC in Windows 10

Sometimes you need to make more room on your hard drive by getting rid of big files you don’t use. The two quick tips below will definitely help you a lot. You can always use the File Explorer to save space on your hard drive. There are a lot of third-party tools that can find and get rid of large files.

Is the hard drive in your laptop or desktop computer more than 75% full? If so, you need to make some space on your hard drive.

How to Quickly Find Largest Files on PC in Windows 10

Using disc cleaner software tools to delete temporary files is one easy way to free up space. You can also free up space on your hard drive by deleting some of your biggest files by hand.

To do that, you’ll need to find the biggest files on the hard drive of your PC first. We can give you a hand with that.

How do I search for files in Windows 10 based on their size?

1

Use File Explorer to find the largest files

Using File Explorer is the best and easiest way to find the biggest files in Windows 10. It’s a tool that comes with your OS that lets you scan your whole PC.

Click the File Explorer button in the taskbar of Windows 10
To look for files, choose your C: drive or another drive partition. You can also choose a particular folder to look for files in.
Click in the Search box to the right of Explorer’s window to open the Search tab.
file explorer search
Type your queryy in Search Box
Choose the option that says, “All subfolders.”
explorer search6
Choose subfolder in Header
Click the Size button to bring up the drop-down menu shown below.
explorer search2
Choose Highest size available
Choose the option “Gigantic (>128 MB)” to find the biggest files. Then, File Explorer will show you a list of all files that are bigger than 128 MB in the directory or drive you chose.
Press the Type button to change your search even more.
Choose to look for a specific type of file, like a picture, song, or video.
explorer search4
Diffrent Content types
To delete files, choose them and then press the Delete button.
Click “Empty Recycle Bin” in the Recycle Bin to get rid of the files you’ve already deleted.

Even though many Windows 10 users use Cortana to search, File Explorer is still the best built-in tool for searching files.

So, if you don’t want to use a specialized tool, Explorer is a good Windows file manager with many ways to search.

Using the steps above, you can use the options on the Search tab of Explorer to find your PC’s largest files.

Some of the biggest files on your desktop or laptop might be system files that are in subfolders inside the Windows folder. Don’t get rid of any big files that could be system files.

If you aren’t sure if a file is part of the system or not, don’t delete it. Keep only the biggest pictures, videos, documents, and other files in your user folder.

File Explorer may also be able to find big program files (EXE). Don’t delete program files from Explorer because they will probably be listed in the Programs and Features Control Panel applet.

2

Using a 3rd Party tool

A dedicated file finder tool will help you find documents exactly the way you need them to be found. These tools have features that let you look deep into computer files and find exactly what you need.

So, you can look for something in a file by:

  • Date
  • Size
  • Type
  • Name
  • Folder

There are a lot of different subscription plans for these tools, including some that are free, but their features may be limited.

But you can be sure that the most common file types are covered. These include Office files, Outlook emails and attachments, text documents, archived files, and multimedia files.

After finding the biggest files, you can still free up HDD space if you need to keep some of them by moving them from your hard drive to Google Drive or OneDrive.

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