Disk & Storage Guide
By Get more storage on a Windows PC in two halves. Make room: run a disk space analyzer to see which folders are big, move Store apps and games with Settings, Apps, Installed apps, Move, relocate Videos, Pictures and Downloads with the Location tab. Set Where new content is saved to another drive. Add room: push cold files to OneDrive Files On-Demand or a USB drive, and if the drive is full of daily-use files, fit a second drive or a larger SSD. Measure first, so you move the right things.
A 256 GB laptop fills up in a year. A 1 TB desktop fills up in three. Either way the question is the same: where does more storage come from? The answer has two parts, and most guides only give one. You can make room by moving what is already there, and you can add room with new hardware or the cloud. Doing the first well often means you never need the second.
The order matters. Measure before you move, move before you buy. That way a second drive, if you get one, ends up holding the right things instead of a copy of the same mess.
Why Does a Windows PC Run Out of Storage?
Because everything defaults to the C: drive. Windows installs there, every app installs there, your Documents, Pictures, Videos and Downloads live there. Games drop 100 GB libraries there without asking. A second drive can sit empty for years while C: chokes, only because nothing was ever pointed at it.
The second reason is that the space is invisible. Settings shows a bar with Apps, Documents and a big Other block, but never says which folder is the problem. People delete photos to free 2 GB while a forgotten 80 GB game sits untouched. That is why step one below is to look before you act.
How Do I Get More Storage on a Windows PC?
Seven steps. The first six use Windows and things you already own. The seventh is where you spend money, and by then you will know exactly how much you need.
Measure what is using the drive before you touch anything
Do not start by buying a drive or deleting at random. Open Settings > System > Storage for the category totals, then run a disk space analyzer on the C: drive to see which folders hold the space. Univik Disk Usage Reporter ranks every folder, marks the biggest files and shows it all as a treemap. If two game libraries and a video export folder make up 400 GB, you now know that moving three folders solves it. If it is thousands of small things, cleanup is the answer instead.
Clear the easy space first
Run the built-in cleaners once before moving anything, because they cost nothing and sometimes return 20 GB on their own. The full sequence is in our guide to freeing up disk space on Windows. In short: Settings, System, Storage, then Cleanup recommendations and Temporary files, then switch Storage Sense on. Come back here for the space that is left.
Move Store apps and games to another drive
Go to Settings > Apps > Installed apps, click the three-dot menu beside a large app and choose Move, then pick the D: or E: drive. Windows relocates the app and keeps it working. Only apps from the Microsoft Store show Move. Classic programs installed from a setup file show Modify and Uninstall instead, and those have to be uninstalled and reinstalled to the other drive. Steam and the Xbox app have their own library settings for moving games.
Send new content to the other drive from now on
Open Settings > System > Storage > Advanced storage settings > Where new content is saved. For apps, documents, music, photos, videos and maps you can pick a different drive. From then on new installs and new files go there rather than to C:. This does not move what is already on the drive, and a few programs ignore it and install to C: anyway, but it stops the system drive filling up again.
Move your big personal folders
Right-click Videos in File Explorer, choose Properties, open the Location tab and click Move to a folder on the second drive. Windows copies the contents and every program keeps finding the folder in its usual place. Repeat for Pictures, Music and Downloads. These four are usually the largest personal folders on a home PC and moving them is the single biggest gain after games.
Push cold files to the cloud or an external drive
If you use OneDrive, turn on Files On-Demand so files you have not opened in a while stay in the cloud with only a small placeholder on the disk. Storage Sense can do this on a schedule. For files you rarely need at all, old projects, finished video work, a yearly backup, an external USB drive is cheaper per gigabyte than anything else and keeps the system drive lean.
Add a drive or fit a bigger SSD when moving is not enough
If the analyzer shows the drive is full of things you use every day, no amount of shuffling helps and it is time to add room. A desktop takes a second internal SSD in minutes. A laptop usually has one slot, so the answer is a larger SSD and a clone of the old one. External SSDs over USB are fast enough for games and video on modern ports. Whichever you choose, run the analyzer again afterwards so you know what to keep on which drive.
Which Apps Can Move to Another Drive?
This trips people up. In Settings > Apps > Installed apps, only apps from the Microsoft Store show a Move option in their menu. Classic desktop programs, the ones installed from a downloaded setup file, show Modify and Uninstall and nothing else. To move one of those you uninstall it and reinstall with the new drive chosen in the installer.
Games are the big exception and the big win. Steam has a Storage tab in its settings that moves a game between library folders on different drives. The Xbox app and Epic Games Launcher have similar options. A single move there can free more than every cleaner combined. Run the analyzer first so you know which game folders are actually the largest, then move those.
When Should I Buy More Storage Instead?
When the analyzer shows the drive is full of things you use. If the top folders are this year's photos, the games you play every week and a video project in progress, moving them to a slow external drive only shifts the pain. That is the point to add storage rather than shuffle it.
On a desktop, a second internal SSD is the simplest answer and fits in minutes. On a laptop with one slot, buy a larger SSD and clone the old drive to it, then swap. For either, a fast external SSD over USB-C is a fair middle path for games and video, and a plain USB hard drive is the cheapest home for archives. After the new drive is in, move the big folders to it using steps three to five above and run the analyzer once more to confirm the balance.
People buy a drive, plug it in and keep saving to C: out of habit. Six months on both drives are a mess. Measure first, move on purpose and point new content at the new drive. That is the whole trick.
More Storage: Every Option at a Glance
Every route from this guide, what it needs and roughly what it gives back.
| Option | Where | What you gain | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Measure the drive | Disk space analyzer | Shows which folders to move | Free |
| Built-in cleanup | Settings > System > Storage | 5 to 20 GB of cache and leftovers | Free |
| Move Store apps and games | Settings > Apps > Installed apps > Move | Tens to hundreds of GB | Free |
| Redirect new content | Where new content is saved | Stops C: refilling | Free |
| Move Videos, Pictures, Downloads | Properties > Location > Move | Often the largest personal folders | Free |
| Cloud or external archive | OneDrive Files On-Demand, USB drive | Cold files off the system drive | Low |
| Second drive or bigger SSD | Internal or USB-C external | As much as you buy | Hardware |
Univik Disk Usage Reporter shows every folder on the drive by size, the largest files with their paths and a treemap of the lot, so you move the three folders that matter instead of guessing. Free edition, runs on your PC, report saves as HTML or CSV.
Windows 7 to 11 · scans internal, external and network drives · no account
The short version
- Measure the drive with an analyzer first, so you move the folders that are actually big.
- Move Store apps and games: Settings, Apps, Installed apps, Move. Steam and Xbox move games from their own settings.
- Move Videos, Pictures and Downloads with Properties, Location, Move.
- Set Where new content is saved to the other drive so C: stops refilling.
- Push cold files to OneDrive Files On-Demand or a USB drive.
- Buy a second drive or bigger SSD only when the drive is full of things you use every day.
Measure your drive free with Univik Disk Usage Reporter
PC Storage Questions
About This GuideWritten by Leena Taylor Paul for Univik, a Windows utility developer since 2013. The Settings paths for moving apps and redirecting new content were confirmed against Microsoft's documentation and Q&A in September 2026, including the Store-apps-only limit on the Move option. Updated 22 September 2026. Not sure which drive to buy? Send support your report from the link under this guide.
Checked against: Microsoft Support on drive space in Windows · Microsoft Q&A: move an app from C: to D: · Univik Disk Usage Reporter