Occasional as you use your hard drive, it becomes clogged with unwanted and unnecessary files which would consume more system resources. At times it could even accumulate a number of large, space-wasting files that are of no value to you. These files could be your internet history, old files, and many more. The longer these files stay on your hard drive, the higher the likelihood that your hard drive's speed and efficiency will decline. Hence, such files need to be reviewed manually and cleared from the hard drive.
If your hard drive is cluttered with programs and files, you can clear them from the hard drive by just selecting them and moving them to your Recycle Bin on your Windows PC or the Trash bin on your Macintosh computer. After the files are moved successfully, it is important to empty the Trash / Recycle Bin to regain your hard drive space. To remove the junk files and uninstall the programs on your hard drive, just follow the simple steps listed below:
Delete Files and Uninstall / Remove Programs from your Windows PC
1. .tmp files
These are files that are only temporarily needed. To find and locate these files just type “temp” in your Run command and press enter. You will see a list of all temp files present on your system. Just delete them all by hitting “Shift + Delete”
2. Cache files
Look under options in Internet Explorer click on Advanced, and then select Cache. Click on “Clear Memory Cache” and then hit the “Clear Disk Cache” option. If you use Google Chrome, press Ctrl + H to open the History tab select the items to be deleted, and hit the “Clear browsing data” option. From the list you get, make an appropriate selection to delete the history items and delete them.
3. Filecheck Files
When your system is not closed properly, some of the files get lost and your system saves these files as file000.chk files and will be numbered as 0001, 0002, etc. These can be deleted easily. You will find these in the C: directory.
You can also find these files through the Find dialog box. Press F3 on the desktop and type in *.chk in the Find Tool. This will find all of the filecheck files and now just delete them all from here.
4. Data files
These can be your Excel sheets, PowerPoint Presentations, Word documents, and many more. If your hard drive contains old data files, it’s advisable to delete them all. To do this just select the files and hit “Shift + Delete” keys.
5. To uninstall programs
- First, click on the “Start” button on your desktop taskbar, and then select the “Control Panel” tab from the pop-up window
- Under the Programs section, just click the “Remove a Program” link. Then locate the program file that you feel as unwanted and wish to uninstall, and click on it once
- Then, click on the “Uninstall” button that is present at the top of the program list, and follow the onscreen instructions provided to delete the program from your computer
- Click the “Restart” button on the pop-up window if it appears after the uninstallation finishes to finalize the program removal
To Remove Files and Uninstall Applications from Your Mac
- Click on the “Finder” icon that is situated at the far left of the screen's dock, and locate the files you wish to remove from your hard drive
- If it is applications, then click the “Applications” tab in the Finder's sidebar
- Now, drag and drop the file or application icon onto the Trash icon on the dock to remove the file from your Mac computer
- Enter your system administrator password in the System Administrator pop-up window when removing applications to authorize the removal. Alternatively, you can also right-click the file or application and click “Move to Trash” on the shortcut menu
- Click the “Trash” icon on your dock, and click “Finder” on the menu in the upper-left corner of the screen
- Now, select "Secure Empty Trash" to permanently remove all files from the Trash bin
Tips to Remember: Before selecting any files for deletion, check twice and then delete them
By performing all these steps you can clear all your unwanted files from your hard drive. This way you can get rid of them manually. Isn’t it lengthy? Yes, manually clearing these files will be a very tedious process and it is also risky as there are chances of losing your vital data. Instead, make use of the Remo Privacy Cleaner tool that can easily perform all these deletions in just one click. The utility can easily erase all your unwanted files, temp files, clear browsing data, uninstall programs, etc. safely from your Windows, Mac, and even your Android devices.
