Fix for CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal Growing Huge in Windows 11

I ran into the same problem and my CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal had grown to 108.6 GB.

I'm a Japanese speaker, so this post was translated into English with the help of ChatGPT. I also worked through the recovery procedure together with ChatGPT, verifying each step before proceeding.

What worked safely for me was:

Boot into Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).

Open Command Prompt.

Navigate to:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\CapabilityAccessManager

Rename CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal (I renamed it to Cap.old) instead of deleting it immediately.

Boot Windows normally.

Windows automatically created a new small CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal.

Verify that Wi-Fi and other functions work correctly.

Boot back into WinRE and delete Cap.old.

This safely recovered 108.6 GB of disk space.

In my case, Safe Mode was not sufficient, but WinRE allowed access to the file.

I don't yet know what originally caused the runaway WAL growth. This procedure only recovers the disk space safely. The underlying trigger (such as repeated location requests) should still be investigated.

I hope this helps anyone else who encounters the same issue.