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Amirioh's avatar
Amirioh
Copper Contributor
May 15, 2026

Windows Capability Access Manager issue

The Problem:

My (C:) Drive storage (184 GB): So the past few months I was facing the storage almost being full issue with my (C:) drive (I usually try keeping 30 to 40 GB free on C drive) and started solving the issue with common methods like clearing disk temp files with Disk Cleanup, finding the huge software and transferring it to other free drives, clearing more temp with CMD and even reducing System Restore Points' allocated storage to 14 GB and all sorts of tips and tricks to free up space.

Nothing worked so it was the time to do some deep research, i opened WizTree and tried finding hidden files and saw 2 issues

- First the system restore point taking more space that given (Was using 20 GB, instead of given 14 GB only) But that's normal cause it clears up on its own when storage is near full and on other post people said its normal.

- The Second issue - Windows Capability Access Manager issue, it's task is to manages app permissions for sensitive resources like the camera, microphone, and location, logging usage in a SQLite database and it's suppose to be few KB to few MB. So, it was clear that Capability Access Manager is one of the cause that is increasing (C:) drive storage.
So if you are able to find out what's spamming requests, you will can solve this but on the other hand to figure out what's really causing this nearly impossible. Don't even know who made this its just makes no sense.

2 Replies

  • Boverly's avatar
    Boverly
    Copper Contributor

    In a healthy system, this log is supposed to be tiny. However, if a buggy or aggressive application constantly checks permissions, it causes millions of writes to this log file. Windows gets overwhelmed and never gets a chance to flush the log into the main database, causing the file to spiral out of control to 20GB, 50GB, or even 100GB+.

    • Sinner's avatar
      Sinner
      Occasional Reader

      Was 390GB for me by the time I noticed my 500GB drive was full despite only 90GB of files.  Turns out it is location services for me.  Even if every App is denied permission, if the master setting is on the DB continually grows