Dear DaaS User,


If you've ever gotten the "Low Disk Space" warning in Windows, you probably reached out to support for help.  Drive hygiene is a good habit that will help ensure your system runs smoothly.  And there are some super-easy things you can do yourself.

Recycle Bin & Downloads Folder Basics

Downloads Folder

The Downloads folder is part of the user profile and contains files retrieved from other online sources, like web pages.  Most people use those files after downloading or re-saving, but don't realize they've been kept permanently.  By default, the Downloads folder is located in the Quick Access section of Windows Explorer.  Click that link to display all the stored files.

Delete all or some of the files as needed.  A quick way to find old files is to click on the Date column header to sort and find all the old files for deletion.

Recycle Bin

There's no doubt that the Recycle Bin is a useful tool as a temporary holding for deleted files; it's saved users agony of lost data countless times.  But if not emptied, that temporary turns to permanent for some users.  If you're sure there's nothing needed in the Recycle Bin, right-click on the icon and select the Empty Recycle Bin menu item.

Copied files (as opposed to shortcuts)

A common issue occurs when users copy files to their Desktop instead of creating shortcuts.  The Desktop is another part of the user profile.  Make sure that files that should belong in Documents or on a company drive lave links and are not full copies.

Outlook Cache

This space hog is less obvious than the other ones.  By default, Outlook wants to store one year of data on your disk while keeping the rest of your data online.  Caching recent items to disk makes Outlook faster.  But having too much data could eat up space.  Open Outlook and go to File > Account Settings.  Double-click on your email account and adjust the cache slider down.  The threshold is different for everyone, so use judgement choosing another option like three or six months.  After saving the settings, the cache will slowly start to truncate.

Next week we'll introduce a built-in program for helping with disk space: the Disk Cleanup tool.