My laptop has a 1 TB drive, and one day Windows told me it was nearly full. I hadn't saved anything big. So where did it all go?
When I finally measured it, very little of it was "my files". Most of it was stuff developer and AI tools leave behind and never clean up:
| What | Size on my PC |
|---|---|
| Docker Desktop's disk | 77 GB |
| VirtualBox machines | 36 GB |
| Hugging Face model cache | 32.5 GB |
| Recycle Bin | 18 GB |
| npm, pip, uv, Gradle and other caches | 15+ GB |
.vhdx files) grow but never shrink by themselves, even after you delete images or files inside them.
The rule I ended up with: only remove what comes back by itself. A cache that the tool rebuilds on demand is safe. Your projects, documents, photos, and anything that exists only on this PC are not, no matter how big.
Some quick wins, by hand:
npm cache clean --force
pip cache purge
docker system prune # read what it lists first
ollama list # then: ollama rm <model you no longer use>
For WSL and Docker disks, deleting files inside them is not enough; the .vhdx has to be compacted (with diskpart or Optimize-VHD) before Windows gets the space back.
Doing this by hand every few months got old, so I built Sparewise, a free Windows app:
Get it from the Microsoft Store or sparewise.app. Guides for each of the folders above: sparewise.app/guides.
What fills your drive? I'm curious whether it's the same suspects for everyone.
This post was drafted by an AI assistant for the Sparewise developer.