Windows 10/11 - Clean up your PC without external (scammy) software

If you used your PC (a lot) for over 1 year and/or you've just upgraded from Windows 10 to 11 or in-between major updates for each version, it's wise to perform a comprehensive clean up of your system in order to bring valuable storage space, performance and stability back to their place.

In the past, programs like CCleaner were fairly reliable and efficient in speeding up the clean up process but today those were compromised by their paid/shareware nature both from a lucrative and security point of view.

Even if there are still some very few exceptions (e.g. Wise Care 365), most if not all third-party/external "cleaner" or "optimizer" or "tweaker" applications for Windows will do more harm than good and are not actually necessary at all.

In fact, both Windows 10 and 11 already include all the necessary tools to maintain and optimize the OS for you.

So, let's see what you need to do for a Full (and Secure) Clean-up process:

• Delete your browser cache/history

The first thing you would do is to fully clean up your default browser (which I recommend to be the new native "Microsoft Edge" based on Chromium).

Go into your browser Settings -> Choose what to delete -> Select "From the Beginning" or "All" as your period -> Select all elements to be removed.

This will provide a "fresh start" for the browser, removing all the clutter while fixing bugs/issues and also making it much faster. You can manually select/unselect the elements you want to remove/keep (like saved password and cookies) if you want to avoid re-entering information or log-in again to your most viewed/used websites, before removing.

I also recommend using an efficient and reliable free "Ad-Blocker" like Adguard (with proper filters enabled and update) to further enhance security and performance while browsing the future.

• Flush your DNS cache

Somewhat linked to the browser clean up, it's also important to execute this command for cleaning up the DNS cache of your entire OS.

This may fix many connection errors and increase performance not only for websites but also the general connectivity of Windows apps and programs.

Click on Search button and type "cmd" (without commas) -> Right click on "Command Prompt" and "Run it as an administrator"

Enter the following command: "ipconfig /flushdns" (without commas) and push Enter.

You will receive a confirmation message after the DNS cache will be cleaned.

• Clean system Temporary Files - Part 1

Now let's go to safely remove all the temporary files and clutter accumulated over the months/years within Windows itself.

Click on the Search icon and type "Settings" -> Go to "System" settings tab -> Click on "Temporary file" row

You can safely remove everything in it except for "Download" folder if you have valuable files stored in there which you want to keep.

After you cleaned up what you want there, go back to the previous screen and now access to "Storage Sense" row.

Storage Sense is an useful feature introduces in Windows 10 and improved in 11 which will automatically and safely remove some of those temporary files for you after a specified period of time.

Be sure to have Storage Sense enabled checking the options above, then select "Once a month" as a good period and also "Delete recycle bin" after 30 days too.

Be sure to "Never" delete files from Download folder.

• Clean system Temporary Files - Part 2

Let's continue removing temporary system clutter with more advanced commands.

Click on the Search icon and type "cleanup" -> Right click on Clean Up Disk and "Run as an administrator" 

What  you'll see here it's a similar list of what we've just removed before in Part 1, but with additional elements to be safely removed.

Select all the items you see (except "Download" folder) and proceed to their removal. Then click on the "Other options" tabs as per the image above.

Here you can also remove the Windows "shadow copies" or page files that the system creates each time it goes to "hibernation" mode or each time temporary files are created when you launch an app. Also proceed to safely remove those.

• Defrag your drives

After the removal of all unnecessary files, it's time to defragment your drives.

This will "tighten up" all the clusters in your HDDs or launch a "TRIM" command for your SSD to improve read/write performance in the future and also extend the disk life span.

Click on the Search icon and type "defrag" -> Right click on Disk Defragmentation and "Run as an administrator" -> Be sure to also "Advanced view" flag too

Click on Optimize button for each partition listed and wait for the Defrag/TRIM process to complete.

The defrag/trim command should auto-launch weekly, so also make sure that you see that correctly scheduled below the same window.

• Check for system integrity

As a last command, go again to Command Prompt (run as an Administrator) and launch:

"sfc /scannow" (without commas)

This will verify the Windows system integrity and repair it in case something got corrupted during the months/years. It is a very important last step, so let it finish through 100%.

If everything is fine you will see a confirmation message saying: "No integrity violations found".

• AVOID REGISTRY CLEANERS OR MESSING UP WITH REGISTRY

This is not an actual "step" but more a disclaimer.

Even if a website, an app, a friend or even a family member suggests you to do so for some magic snake oil performance improvement: STILL DON'T DO THAT.

Messing with Windows 10/11 registry is totally unnecessary and won't bring you any improvement at all but just more trouble.

• Fully reboot your PC

When using the regular "Reboot" button of Windows 10/11, what happens is that the system won't still fully reboot the machine but will always save the "state" of drivers and some files similar to hibernation and restore them as they were before the reboot for fastening up the process.

After doing a full Windows clean up and all the steps above, it is recommended to perform a real, old-fashioned, "full reboot" instead where also all the drivers and all the files are restarted again from scratch.

In order to do so, open again the Command Prompt (run as an Administrator) and launch the command:

"shutdown /r /f /t 0" (without commas)

Wait for your PC to fully restart and...

Enjoy your new-found freshness :)