How to Delete Windows.OLD Folder from Windows 10 Device

Don’t try to delete Windows.OLD folder from Windows 10 device via Windows Explorer. You won’t be able to remove Windows. Old folder via Windows Explorer.

I have tried to delete this folder via Windows Explorer many times but never succeeded. In this post, we will see the method to Delete Windows.OLD Folder from Windows 10 Device.

How to Delete Windows.OLD folder Video tutorial here

What is there in Windows.OLD folder?

Windows.OLD folder is the folder where the previous installation Windows version is stored. Windows.OLD folder is created when we upgrade one version of Windows 10 to another version of Windows 10.

For example:- When you perform an in-place upgrade of Windows 10 1703 to Windows 10 1709, then Windows.OLD folder will get created.

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How to Delete Windows.OLD Folder from Windows 10 Device

Is it safe to delete Windows.OLD folder from Windows 10 Device?

I will give you the answer to this question depending on the answer to the following question. Are you planning, or do you want to restore the Windows 10 version on the device to the previous version of Windows 10?

For Example:- Suppose, you have upgraded to Windows 10 1709 version.  And you want to restore the previous version of Windows 10 (1703). In this scenario, you need to have Windows.OLD folder. Otherwise, you won’t be able to restore your device to the previous version of Windows 10.

How to Free up more space in the C drive of a Windows 10 Machine?

Check whether you have a folder named Windows.OLD in C drive. If so, you can remove or delete that Windows.OLD folder to get more free space on your C drive. You should get around 25 GB of free space on your Windows 10 machine’s C drive.

How to Delete Windows.OLD Folder from Windows 10 Device

How to Clean-up / Delete / Remove Windows.OLD folder from Windows 10 Device?

Open Windows Explorer, Click on “This PC” – Right-click on the C drive, and go to properties. Click on the Disk Cleanup button on the properties of the C drive.

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Disk Cleanup doesn’t have any option to delete the previous installation of Windows 10, so the “previous installation of Windows” option is not showing up in the Disk Cleanup option.

Windows.OLD folder contains the System Files of Windows 10. Hence, we need to click on the “Cleanup System Files” button to get the option to delete Windows.OLD folder.

How to Delete Windows.OLD Folder from Windows 10 Device

Select the option “Previous Windows Installation(s)” to free up 22.2 GB of free space on C drive. Click on OK button to start the deletion of Windows.OLD folder from C drive.

Will Windows Automatically delete the Windows. Old folder?

Windows won’t delete the Windows—old folder. I have tested this on my production machine after the Falls Creator Update of Windows 10. The content of Windows. The old folder has been removed, and the folder is zero sizes. But the Windows. The old folder is still present.

Do you want to delete the folder manually? There is no need to do that action because there is no benefit out of that action.

As per my testing, this clean-up action occurred 11 days after the folder created date.

How to Delete Windows.OLD Folder from Windows 10 Device

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More details about the programmatic way to remove WIndows.OLD is explained here.

Author

Anoop is Microsoft MVP! He is a Solution Architect in enterprise client management with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is Blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. He writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc……………

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