Pagefile.sys! Can I Delete It?

truewraith · 29 Nov 2020 at 12:55

i lost a ton of space on my c drive and i was advised to use an app called Windirstat. and it shows a huge box in middle called pagefile.sys at 23gb.

please can someone tell me if i safely delete this and if it might cause any problems?

Grimley · 29 Nov 2020 at 13:33

No. That's because when Windows runs out of available ram, it uses that file to store data that Windows is currently using. If you have another hard drive in your rig, you move it there & tell Windows where it is.

I did that myself when I started out in PC's many years ago. I ended up having to re-install Windows.

Clav · 29 Nov 2020 at 13:33

No dont straight up delete it, you could cause issues. Windows uses this file as a kind of overflow if you run out of memory. You can follow these steps to edit the setting, but it's recommended to let windows look after it. https://windowsreport.com/pagefile-sys-file-windows-10/. You're sig says Win7 but the settings should be in the same place, if you cant find it, just go start, then run, then type sysdm.cpl.

Also try running the in-built disk clean-up tool, make sure to click the 'clean system files' button (or whatever its called) .

e: from your other post about installing AMD drivers, the installer will unpack the files into the c:\AMD folder by default and you can safely delete this folder after the drivers are installed.

truewraith · 29 Nov 2020 at 14:06

thank so much i will go check out that info and im really glad i asked on here before i did that thats for sure

and yeah im on win7, still need to hit up 10 at some point hehe

adrichardson81 · 30 Nov 2020 at 12:02

That does seem large for a page file. Is it set to system managed or did you manually set the size?

I'm trying to remember how Windows 7 approaches it - if it's set to 1.5x ram and you've got 16gb, that would explain it.

ketma · 30 Nov 2020 at 13:04

You can't delete the pagefile.sys outright as already noted as its a system file, however you can reduce the size by setting the value manually, or even disable it entirely (if you have plenty of RAM), however it's not recommended to do that.

sideways14a · 30 Nov 2020 at 13:05

You can delete it but it will completely knacker everything..... so best not.
HDD space is cheep, get another drive.

pc-guy · 30 Nov 2020 at 16:21

page file is the windows memory swap file. you shouldnt delete it outright. the proper way of getting rid off it, is to adjust the virtual memory and select 0 mb. then reboot.

depend on your physical ram, the page file is usually used when your system ram is running out and you still have loads of programmes open hogging ram etc. but if you physical ram is quite large (32GB, 64GB, 128GB), you dont really need page file.

additional thing to note when using SSD is that the page file can eat into a SSD's life expectance.

Cyber-Mav · 30 Nov 2020 at 17:53

Set pagefile manually to 128mb. On my system freed up 60 odd gigs since for some reason windows wants to make page file bigger the more ram you got

andy_mk3 · 30 Nov 2020 at 17:56

Depending on how much RAM you have, it's probably best to adjust it to around 1gb to be safe. Some apps still use the pagefile even with lots of RAM.

Quartz · 30 Nov 2020 at 18:08

truewraith said:
please can someone tell me if i safely delete this and if it might cause any problems?

Definitely don't delete it. What you can do is split it. For debugging purposes you need at least a 2 MB pagefile on your system drive, but the rest can be on another drive. Indeed Windows can benefit from having the pagefile on a separate drive.

Are you using a desktop? If so, to free up additional space look for the hibernation file, hiberfil.sys, and if it's present, disable hibernation.

MrPleasant_exe · 21 Dec 2020 at 13:40

You can do a full shutdown to clear it, open cmd and type sundown -s

Phil2008 · 21 Dec 2020 at 14:15

Ive got my pagefile.sys locked at 5gb