Every time we perform actions on our computer with a Windows operating system we are leaving traces on it . That is, every time we access the Internet and visit a site we are leaving a file in a specific folder that later when we close that application or Internet site will no longer serve the general file.
These files are called volatile files and are housed in certain folders within Windows, they generate inconvenience when it comes to performance and from the point of view of system security, since many malicious files are hosted in these folders .
Fortunately, there are different tools to clean the temporary files folder. In this article we will show you each one of them and we will talk about the benefits that exist when we clean that folder.
Index:
What are temporary files and what are they for in your System Windows 10 operating?
Temporary files in Windows are those data that are saved in a specific folder and that were originated by the operating system itself.
Windows permanently generates volatile files for different reasons , the most common is for security. That is, files are generated that support the different changes and editions that the user makes within Windows, if the user makes any mistake, the previous version can be recovered using these temporary files.
In order to identify a temporary file, it is enough that we look at its extension, if it is «.tmp» we are in the presence of these auxiliary files.
The folder in which they are stored is “ c: windows TEMP :” or “c: user username AppData Local Temp:” for those cases where it exists more than one user in the team and we only need to delete one in a specific way.
Why is it necessary to delete the temporary folder and how often? Should we do it in W10?
We know that every activity we do with our computer is registered somewhere in Windows.
We will realize that every activity, from visiting a web page to printing a document, leaves its temporary files in the Windows folder , that is, as time passes and our interaction with our device the volatile files folder is getting bigger and bigger .
This generates as a consequence that more space is being used on the hard disk, and therefore inconveniences or incompatibilities may begin to arise with other programs that need free space on the disk to also be able to function properly.
At the same time, having a greater amount of garbage data also means occupying more RAM, so it also decreases the performance in terms of executing the commands that we assign to our equipment.
Last, and no less important than the previous ones, viruses. Especially the Trojans hide in the temporary files folder, since they have an extension «.tmp» .
From all this we can highlight that, we frequently need to delete our temporary files folder in order to increase the performance of our computer, have a greater storage capacity on our disk hard and protect our security and that of the operating system .
But, like all things in computing, it is not advisable to do it often (except when we find strange performances on our computer, they could point to the presence of a virus or malware ), since when deleting We will need the volatile files as we move forward in our interaction with the computer to have certain data that is necessary to provide the information to the processor so that it can work quickly.
By this we mean that every time we delete the volatile files, we will have to do some work that before deleting the folder we didn’t do it , in addition our processor will work a little slower at the beginning because no It has the immediate information you can get from these files.
What are the benefits of removing this type of data from your PC?
When we clean the temporary files of our Windows operating system we get benefits that we will see reflected in the operation of our computer.
The most important benefits are:
- Increase our storage capacity , this prevents the danger of overwriting on storage units near the hard disk when it is full.
- We achieve a higher performance of installed applications, applications also need to create temporary files to work properly, when we have many junk files, it takes time for programs to find a place to save their temporary file that needs to be generated.
- We significantly reduce the risk of virus or malware entering into the system, many of these types of malicious files have the same extension as temporary files, so it is a good idea to delete volatile files and we will prevent this malware from running.
What programs leave unnecessary files on the computer that you can delete?
There are different origins of the generation of temporary files, the programs that can save their data in these unnecessary files are going to be named below.
Windows operating system
Windows generates many junk or temporary files that are necessary for the proper functioning of the system and its kernel.
That is to say, Windows keeps saving necessary information about a better operability of the same but that after finishing the operation it is no longer useful.
An example of this is when we have updated the operating system and Windows automatically saves the previous version in this file class so that if there are current modifications in the edition by us, we can reuse the previous version without any problem .
Another example of this is when we use previous versions of a program that we have installed, we will take Word as a model, if they send us a document with a version earlier than the one we have, without us noticing we can open and edit that document, since our operating system saves all the necessary files to be able to edit.
Applications
As we were saying, the programs we install also need to work efficiently, for this they generate files that will not be used later and that will not help us either.
The designers of these applications develop them in this way because it is the only way to find a fast and correct operation so that we can have a good experience.
Websites
As expected, Internet has a great role in this kind of files. While it is true that you save many of these temporary files directly in our browser, you also save them in folders of our operating system.
It happens this way because different sites need to identify us at the moment we enter them, which is why they often relate our accounts to other applications without any additional steps being taken.
Steps to remove volatile files from your computer with Windows 10
Windows is one of the most reliable operating systems that exist, its design is closed source and presents constant updates to increase our protection.
We have spoken that different viruses are housed in the temporary files folder so it is necessary to perform different steps to be able to shield the operating system of our computer.
One of those steps is the removal of volatile files, for this there are different ways to erase this junk data.
Next, we will show you three efficient methods, they are:
With the disk space freezer
Microsoft offers us an internal tool with which we can delete the temporary files folder without any problems, so in addition to protecting ourselves against junk files we will also be sure that we will not touch the kernel or kernel of the operating system.
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This tool is called “Disk Cleanup”, and the steps we will have to follow are the following:
- We select the Windows logo “Start “, which is located at the bottom right of our screen
- We will immediately write “Disk cleanup strong> ”, Windows will automatically detect that we need to enter the Settings
- panel. A “ Disk Cleanup ” tool will appear and we click in it
- We activate below “Downloaded program files”
- In the “Temporary Internet files” box we add a tilde
From the storage options h3>
We can also use storage options to erase volatile files directly in Windows settings.
For this we will have to perform these steps that we detail below:
- Let’s go to «Home»
- Choose “Settings”
- We look for the option « System »
- Press « Storage »
- We will have to select « This equipment (C) » li>
- We select the option «Temporary files»
- We click on the option «Remove temporary files»
- We click on each of the options we want to delete
With an external program
Another way to delete temporary files is through the installation of third-party programs.
The advantage of this class of applications is that it can be configured to be done automatically, and many of them offer as an additional service the installation of antivirus generating greater peace of mind for our operating system.
The steps we will have to perform are the following:
- We install “System Ninja” (download it later).
- Open the application and select the “Junk Scanner”
- We click on “Scan for Junk”
- We choose “Options” , checking each of the components we want to remove
- Finally we select «Delete files»
Download System Ninja Windows
List of the best programs to free up space and delete temporary data in Windows 10
We will present below the list that has the best programs so that we can free up space on our hard disk and thus have an operating system in optimal conditions.
Below we detail what they are:
Total PC Cleaner
With this application we can reach places where we cannot do it manually, with it we will have the correct space of the hard disk without having files that are left over from applications that no longer exist.
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AVG TuneUp
It is an antivirus par excellence, among its most outstanding functions is the scanning of junk files and gives us the possibility to eliminate them according to our criteria.
It has a free version and a paid annual subscription.
Download AVG TuneUp Windows
Glary Utilities
This very simple tool offers us advanced tools to clean our Windows operating system. With it we can choose the scheduled start and also have a configuration based on different alternatives proposed by the application .
It offers two versions one free and the other with automatic maintenance and unlimited support with which we will have to pay € 19 / year .