Relocating Windows 7 AppData folder, is it possible?

ScarySquirrel · 6 Sep 2011 at 20:55

Hi all,

I have a 64Gb SSD boot drive, which until now has been fine. For some reason my AppData folder has shot up about 20Gb in size, meaning my SSD is almost full.

Firstly, any idea of working out why this has happened and removing the excess data?

Secondly, is it possible to relocate the AppData folder onto one of my other storage drives without causing issue? If so, how can I do it?

Thanks.

Craig321 · 6 Sep 2011 at 20:58

Use TreeSize Free to determine what's taking the space.

http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/

BigBoy · 6 Sep 2011 at 21:02

most likely your Temp folders that you need to move as they will stay quite full, move your Documents pictures and music to another drive and you should see the best part of that 20Gb back!

Mik3 · 6 Sep 2011 at 21:29

This link should help http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/95/1/How-to-move-the-special-folders-in-Windows-Vista.html

Also you can disable hibernate if you don't use it as it takes up 3+ GB.
Type cmd in start, run as admin and type: powercfg -h off

Another way to free some space is to clean the winsxs folder as you can free up 3+ again.
Type cmd in start, run as admin and type: dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

You can also safely delete everything in C:\Windows\Downloaded Installations

I normally free up 10G after doing those.

Nevram · 6 Sep 2011 at 21:30

Craig321 said:
Use TreeSize Free to determine what's taking the space.

http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/

Was going to suggest this, great little app to tell you whats taking up the space. Do you use outlook? if so it could be auto archive. I'd strongly reccomend not even trying to move the folder, it will do more harm than good.

ScarySquirrel · 6 Sep 2011 at 22:19

You guys are friggin' awesome!!

Craig321 said:
Use TreeSize Free to determine what's taking the space.

http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/

Just used this and found out the following:

I'm assuming this is something to do with Adobe Lightroom, it seems to have cached a load of my RAW files, I'm thinking this might be a setting within Lightroom so I'll have a play there, unless anyone else has any ideas?

BigBoy said:
most likely your Temp folders that you need to move as they will stay quite full, move your Documents pictures and music to another drive and you should see the best part of that 20Gb back!

Thanks, I've already got all my documents folders on another drive

Mik3 said:
This link should help http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/95/1/How-to-move-the-special-folders-in-Windows-Vista.html

Also you can disable hibernate if you don't use it as it takes up 3+ GB.
Type cmd in start, run as admin and type: powercfg -h off

Another way to free some space is to clean the winsxs folder as you can free up 3+ again.
Type cmd in start, run as admin and type: dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

You can also safely delete everything in C:\Windows\Downloaded Installations

I normally free up 10G after doing those.

AMAZING! This has freed up around 9Gb, thanks dude.

ScarySquirrel · 6 Sep 2011 at 22:24

Found it, it's a setting in Lightroom, just set the new cache folder on a different drive

tigerstyle · 7 Sep 2011 at 05:46

Craig321 said:
Use TreeSize Free to determine what's taking the space.

http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/

great for sizing up my SSD purchase,

Yes it will all fit on 64Gb