On disk clean up

[Marthe48]

I think I'm succeeding at deleting the temp files. I am deleting them manually, been working on it since about 9:30 this morning. Over 4 1/2 hours to get almost 2 million files into a delete queue, and now 4 hours and counting for the files to delete. They totaled 278G. I'm hoping the length of time it is taking to delete will equal a cleaned up disk.
Why so many files? I read that if the computer is shut down incorrectly, or crashes, there will be temp files that don't get cleaned off. There have been plenty of times the power went out, lots of crashing too, probably because of the files building up. I've been worried all day that the power would go out and I'd have to start all over.
If this works, maybe I can put off buying a new laptop

[OutNow]

1. Try CCleaner utility

I've been using CCleaner for many years. It automates the process you've been doing manually.

[Marthe48]

2. Thanks

I'm going to pay more attention to the build-up from now on.

[LoisB]

3. Agree about CCleaner. I use the free version (takes seconds).

[sboatcar]

4. 2 million files is going to take a very long time

Third party utilities are ok, but honestly its the windows update files that take up the most space, MS keeps them in the to provide the ability to roll back if some update messes things up. 99.9% chance you'll never need them again. The longer you have your computer and the more updates that get installed, the more of those files will be there.

[Marthe48]

5. Time left moves up and down

So far, about 550,000 files left

Now that I know what I'm doing, I won't let it get away again.

[sboatcar]

6. The time left is impossible to determine

Those indicators go on the average speed over the past few minutes. That many files will take hours. Its funny, if it was 270gb in one file it would take like 3 seconds to delete