How I Free Up Storage on My Windows 11 PC by Disabling One Setting

Are you running out of storage on your Windows 11 computer? If so, there’s a Windows setting you can disable to quickly free up to 7GB of space.

What Is Reserved Storage in Windows 11?

During the early days of Windows 10, it was very common to encounter different errors due to a lack of storage when downloading Windows updates. The only workaround you had at the time was to delete some of your personal files to create space whenever you wanted to install a Windows update. However, things changed for the better with the release of the Windows 10 May 2019 Update.

With this update, Microsoft introduced a feature called Reserved Storage. As the name suggests, Windows automatically began reserving a certain amount of space, which was primarily used for installing updates without any issues.

Since then, the reserved storage feature has been a part of Windows, and you can still find it on your Windows 11 system. At the time of its release, Microsoft announced that Windows would set aside at least 7GB of space as reserved storage, regardless of how much disk space you have. This means it doesn’t matter whether you have only 50GB or 500GB of space, Windows will allocate at least 7GB for reserved storage.

There may also be times when Windows does not have any update files to store in reserved storage. In such situations, Windows will allocate the reserved storage to temporary files created by installed apps and to system cache data in order to improve overall functionality. These temporary files and cache data are regularly monitored by Storage Sense, and once it determines that the temporary data is no longer necessary, it is automatically removed from reserved storage.

Similarly, Storage Sense will monitor stored Windows update files, and if it determines that they are no longer necessary for your computer, they will be automatically deleted to make room for new, important Windows update files. If you are trying to install a major Windows update whose storage requirements cannot be met by the space available in the reserved storage, the update will use the required space from the available free storage on your computer.

For instance, if you have 7GB of reserved storage and want to install a Windows update that is around 10GB in size, Windows will use the remaining 7GB from the available free storage on your computer. However, if you don’t have that extra 7GB of free space, you might encounter an error message or receive suggestions from Microsoft to free up some disk space.

All that being said, to check how much reserved storage you have on your Windows 11 computer, open the Settings menu, then navigate to System > Storage > Show More Categories > System & Reserved. In the Reserved Storage section, you’ll find the amount of storage Windows has set aside. In my case, it’s 4.95GB.

How to Disable Reserved Storage on Windows

Usually, I would not recommend disabling reserved storage on your Windows 11 system. However, there may be times when you urgently need additional storage and cannot think of any files to delete. In such a situation, your first course of action should be to remove unnecessary items that are occupying important space on your Windows 11 system. If that doesn’t help, you can consider uninstalling optional features and unused languages to free up space on your device.

If your storage requirements are still not met, then you should consider disabling the reserved storage feature. To do this, open the Start menu, type Windows PowerShell in the search bar, and select “Run as Administrator.” Then type the following command and press Enter.

        Get-WindowsReservedStorageState
    

If you see the message “Reserved Storage is Enabled,” it means you can disable the reserved storage. To do so, type the following command and press Enter.

Set-WindowsReservedStorageState -State Disabled

Windows will now quickly release the amount of reserved storage on the drive where the operating system is installed. However, you might encounter an error stating, “This operation is not supported when reserved storage is in use.” This means that a Windows update has been downloaded and needs to be installed. So, install the update before disabling reserved storage.

Once your storage needs are met, I highly recommend re-enabling reserved storage. To do this, execute the following command in an elevated Windows PowerShell window.

        Set-WindowsReservedStorageState -State Enabled​
    

This was all about reserved storage, how it functions, and how you can disable it. In essence, reserved storage is an important Windows setting that you can disable to gain a bit of extra free space on your computer. However, you should only take this approach if you are truly in need of additional storage on your device and cannot find any files to delete to create space.