Among the many small improvements in Windows 8.1 Update 1 is a set of new settings in PC Settings that help you manage your PC. And key among these is the new Disk Space settings, which lets you check and manage how your PC's or device's storage is being used.
To find Disk Space settings, navigate to PC Settings, PC and Devices, Disk Space.
Here, you can see a rundown of how much storage is used overall on your PC, as well as how much is used by apps, pictures, videos, music, documents, and downloads. There's even a Modern interface to the Recycle Bin.
If you're running short on disk space, you can take a couple of proactive steps here:
See which apps are taking up the most space. Tap on the "See my app sizes" link to view the App Sizes settings (which can be reached independently via PC Settings, Search and Apps, App Sizes). This interface lists your apps in order of size, with the largest first. To uninstall an app, select it and then tap the Uninstall button that appears.
(Manually) manage your documents media files. There's no interface here for managing your documents or media files per se, but if you see that one of these is taking up too much space, you could consider moving that content to a second hard disk (on a traditional PC) or a micro-SD card (on a tablet or 2-in-1). Windows does have an interface for automatically saving files to a secondary storage device: PC Settings, Navigate to PC and Devices, Devices and scroll down to Default Save Locations.
Empty the Recycle Bin. Yep, you can do that from here too.
Buy the book!
Need more information about managing Windows 8.1? Please consider purchasing my Windows 8.1 Field Guide, a comprehensive guide to the new features in Windows 8.1 that costs just $2 for the e-book (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) version. You can find out more at the Windows 8.1 Field Guide web site.
