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Nerfft's avatar
Nerfft
Copper Contributor
Apr 27, 2026

How do I free up storage space on my Windows 11 PC?

Hi everyone, I have an legacy PC that was recently upgraded to Windows 11, and now I am running low on storage space. The computer has a 256GB SSD, and there is only about 20GB of free space left. I...
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Jaidenui's avatar
Jaidenui
Copper Contributor
Apr 27, 2026

Let's talking about how to free up storage on Windows 11 PC. Hibernation saves everything in your memory to a hidden file on your C: drive called hiberfil. sys. This file is roughly equal to the amount of RAM you have.

How much space this frees: If you have 16GB of RAM, you free about 12GB to 16GB.

What you lose: The "Hibernate" option in your power menu (Sleep and Shut Down still work). Your computer may also take slightly longer to start up .

Here's how to disable it for free up storage on Windows 11 PC:

1. Right-click the Start button and select "Terminal (Admin)" or "Command Prompt (Admin)"

2. Type this command and press Enter:

text

powercfg -h off

3. That's it — the file is deleted immediately

4. To turn hibernation back on later, run the same steps with powercfg -h on.