Whether you share your computer with other people or you use it for a lot of downloads, it is nice to be able to clear out the download folder without having to manually take care of it each week or month, which is when an automated deletion comes in handy.
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- Is It Safe To Delete Files From Download Folder Mac
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Alternatively, you can select the file and press Delete, or right-click on the file and select 'Delete'. If your file cannot be deleted, it is because it is in use by another program. This is most common with file-sharing programs, as someone may be trying to download the file from you. How to delete downloaded Windows Update files. It is thankfully pretty easy to delete all cached update files. This works on all supported versions of Windows, including Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. Open the Start Menu (tap on the Windows-key or click on it). Type services.msc.
You can automate the cleanup of your download folder using a batch file that will delete files older than a certain amount of days. You can run this whenever you feel that you need to clean up your download folder or you can use the Task Scheduler to run it daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
Create Your Batch File
For this example, we will tell the batch file to delete any files that are located in the download folder that are older than 30 days. This is useful if you do things like Photoshop work, or writing where you download a lot of resources that you don’t need after an extended period of time.
The first step will be to open notepad. Once you have the program open, paste this string into the screen.
Remember to change the directory to match your computer. You can also choose any directory that is on your computer for the target. Once you have entered the string, save the document as a batch file.
Simply run the file to make sure it works and you will see that any files in your download folder are automatically sent to your Recycle Bin if they are older than 30 days.
Create a Scheduled Task
For the purpose of this example, we will schedule the automatic file deletion every seven days. Begin by opening the start menu and typing in “Task Scheduler” then running the application.
Alternatively, you can open your “Control Panel.” Under the “System and Security” section select the “Administrative Tools” option and then run the “Task Scheduler.”
Once you have the program open, click on the “Action” drop-down menu and select “Create Basic Task.”
You can give the task a name and description of your choosing. For this example, we will call it “Weekly Download Cleanup” and leave the description empty since the title is self-explanatory; then click “Next.”
From the “Trigger” section, we will choose to make the task a weekly action followed by pressing “Next.”
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Now you will need to select a time and day. Remember to choose a time and day that your computer is powered on. For this example, we will just choose midnight on Friday then click next.
Now you will see the “Action” screen. We will leave this as is, since we want to run a specific program every Friday; so you can just click “Next.”
Now you will just need to click on “Browse” and select the batch file you created. As you can see, our batch file was saved on the desktop and is called “DownloadCleanup.bat.” Once you have done that, just click “Next.”
The last screen you will see gives you a comprehensive overview of the task you created. Once you verify that everything is right, just click “Finish” to complete the task creation and it will run automatically according to your specifications.
Now that you know how to schedule auto-deletion of your old files, you don’t need to worry about how to clear up any old files from your download folder.
Image Credit: Mixy Lorenzo on Flickr
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When your computer is running low on space, Vista’s Disk Cleanup will locate a wide variety of files that you can delete, but if you don’t know which files are safe to delete, you might delete a file that will cause you more problems than just limited space.
If you need to run Disk Cleanup, click Start→All Programs→Accessories→System Tools→Disk Cleanup.
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The following table takes you through each of the file types that Disk Cleanup might find. You’ll find an explanation about what each of those file types do and a recommendation as to whether the different types of files are safe to delete.
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| Type of File | Contains | Delete These Files? |
|---|---|---|
| Temporary Setup Files | Vista and other Microsoft setup files. | Yes |
| Downloaded Program Files | ActiveX controls and Java applets. Typically these are small programs downloaded from the Internet. They work with “custom” applications: games, Web file viewers, and the like. | Yes |
| Temporary Internet Files | Cached pictures and pages from Internet Explorer (not Firefox). | Yes |
| Offline Web Pages | Pages that are downloaded automatically so that you can see them without being connected to the Internet. | No |
| Hibernation File Cleaner | If you check this box, you will completely turn off the hibernation feature in Vista. | No |
| Debug Dump Files | If Dr. Watson (Microsoft’s crash reporting tool) wanted the files, he’d have ’em by now. | Yes |
| Old Chkdsk Files | Lost fragments of files that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men would never be able to put back together again. | Yes |
| Previous Windows Installations | System files and folders from previous versions of Windows. Chances are good you’ll never be able to recover them anyway. | Yes |
| Recycle Bin | A good guideline is to never delete Recycle Bin files automatically. If you’re ready to get rid of your old files, delete the files manually by going into the Recycle Bin. | No |
| Setup Log Files | Log files generated when Vista was originally installed. | Yes |
| System Error Memory Dump Files | More Dr. Watson files that you’ll never want. | Yes |
| System Error Minidump Files | Ditto. | Yes |
| Temporary Files | Anything in a Temp folder. | Yes |
| Temporary Windows Installation Files | If the Vista installer didn’t clean up after itself, these are still sitting on your disk. | Yes |
| Thumbnails | The thumbnail files that sit inside every folder. Save time by keeping them. | No |
| Files Discarded by Windows Upgrade | The Vista installer puts files that it doesn’t recognize in a specific location. Unless one of the users on your machine lost files during the upgrade to Vista, you can delete these. | Yes |
| Various Windows Error Reporting Files | More Dr. Watson–style files. | Yes |
If your Disk Cleanup list includes a box called Office Setup Files, be careful about checking the box. Some Office 2003 patches have had bugs that stumble when they find these installation files missing, which can result in a number of strange error messages. It’s best to leave these alone.