What is AppData folder in Windows and how to clean it up?

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Is your C: drive full because of the AppData folder? In this tutorial we will show you how to safely clean up unnecessary files and analyze AppData usage using PowerShell and built-in Windows tools. Our guide applies to supported Windows 11 releases, including Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2. Keep in mind that AppData paths and app behavior may vary by Windows and app version.

What is the AppData Folder in Windows

The AppData folder stores application data, settings, and caches for each user. Over time, it can become bloated with unnecessary files, which can lead to slower performance and take up free space on your hard drive.

Default AppData Folder Location

The default location of the AppData folder in Windows is <OS_Drive>:\Users\<Username>\AppData.

You can quickly navigate to this directory using the following command in the Run dialog or File Explorer address bar:

%userprofile%\AppData

Note that the AppData folder is hidden by default. In order to make it visible in File Explorer, you need to enable Show hidden items under View → Show.

Local, LocalLow, and Roaming Explained

There are three subfolders within the AppData folder: Local, LocalLow, and Roaming.

• Local – contains device-specific settings, temporary files, local caches. This folder is usually quite large, so app developers don’t intend to sync its contents with other computers during user profile synchronization. You can access this directory using the environment variable %LOCALAPPDATA%;
• LocalLow – stores data for applications running with Low Integrity (Mandatory Integrity Control). It is typically used by sandboxed/protected apps to isolate their data from standard user apps.
• Roaming – it stores user profile application settings and data that can be transferred from one computer to another (environment variable %APPDATA%). This folder can be used in roaming profiles or user profile disks in an RDS environment.

Why AppData Takes So Much Space

Apps installed on a machine use the AppData folder to store app data, settings, caches, and other local files. Over time, this folder can grow significantly and consume a large amount of disk space. For example, modern browsers and Electron-based apps such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Discord, VS Code, and Slack can store substantial amounts of cache and profile data under %LOCALAPPDATA%. Microsoft apps such as Teams, the new Outlook for Windows, OneDrive, and Copilot can also maintain local app data and caches. Microsoft Store/MSIX applications, including Phone Link, store app data under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages.

If your computer is running low on disk space, one of the places to check for potential cleanup is the AppData directory.

Even more importantly, uninstalling an app typically doesn’t remove its data files from the AppData folder (do not manually delete unless you know app behavior). As a result, the AppData folder fills up with unnecessary files and folders.

Analyze AppData Size

Analyze AppData Size with PowerShell

To get the size of the Local, LocalLow and Roaming folders in AppData, you can use the following PowerShell script:

$AppDataPath = Join-Path $env:USERPROFILE 'AppData'
$folders = @('Local', 'LocalLow', 'Roaming')

foreach ($folder in $folders) {
$path = Join-Path $AppDataPath $folder

$sizeBytes = (Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Recurse -Force -File -Attributes !ReparsePoint -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
Measure-Object -Property Length -Sum).Sum

if ($null -eq $sizeBytes) {
$sizeBytes = 0
}

$sizeMB = [math]::Round($sizeBytes / 1MB, 2)
Write-Output "${folder}: $sizeMB MB"
}

The script calculated the total size of the files in each folder recursively and displayed the results on the screen.

Note. The calculated size can be lower than the actual size if some files/directories cannot be accessed; -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue suppresses those errors.

Analyze AppData Space with WinDirStat, WizTree, or TreeSize

There are several popular graphical tools which help to analyze disk space usage in Windows. You can choose among different options like WinDirStat, TreeSize Free, and WizTree.

• WizTree is usually much faster on large SSD/NVMe disks (it reads the NTFS MFT directly)
• TreeSize Free provides a cleaner enterprise-style interface
• WinDirStat remains a popular open-source option (with a visual treemap)

If you prefer graphical tools for analyzing disk space usage in Windows, we recommend trying the WinDirStat tool. It can be installed using the built-in WinGet package manager:

winget install --id=WinDirStat.WinDirStat -e

In this example, you can see that the size of the AppData folder is about 21 GB. The graphical folder map in WinDirStat allows you to quickly find files and folders that are taking up a lot of free space. For example, I quickly found a large VHDX image left over from experimenting with WSL in the \AppData\Local\Packages folder.

The directory that usually takes up the most space in the AppData folder is AppData\Local\Packages. This folder contains user data for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps installed through the Microsoft Store or MSIX packages. It contains settings files, caches, and application and user data for specific apps.

Identify Large UWP AppData Packages

Run the following PowerShell script to display top 10 largest app folders in the AppData\Local\Packages directory:

$packagesPath = Join-Path $env:USERPROFILE 'AppData\Local\Packages'

$folderSizes = Get-ChildItem -Path $packagesPath -Directory -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
ForEach-Object {
$size = (Get-ChildItem -Path $_.FullName -Recurse -Force -File -Attributes !ReparsePoint -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
Measure-Object -Property Length -Sum).Sum

if ($null -eq $size) {
$size = 0
}

[PSCustomObject]@{
Name = $_.Name
SizeMB = [math]::Round($size / 1MB, 2)
}
}

$folderSizes |
Sort-Object SizeMB -Descending |
Select-Object -First 10

The names of the folders in the Packages directory are unique identifiers for UWP apps that are either installed from the Microsoft Store or preinstalled in Windows.

You can display information about the Microsoft Store app by its directory name. Note that the directory name in the Packages directory corresponds to the app’s PackageFamilyName. To look up app details by directory name:

Get-AppxPackage | Where-Object PackageFamilyName -eq 'CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu24.04LTS_79rhkp1fndgsc'

Is it safe to manually delete the contents of the Packages folder? It is generally not recommended to manually delete the contents of this folder, as doing so may result in the loss of settings and data. Many Microsoft Store apps offer an option to clear the cache or data in their settings. This is the safest option.

As an alternative, you can clear the UWP app data via Settings > Apps > APP NAME > Advanced Options > Reset.

This will clean up the app’s data in the Packages folder.

Methods to Clean Up AppData Folder

Tip. You can automatically clean up temp files on a schedule with Windows Storage Sense. You can enable it through Settings → System → Storage → Storage Sense → Turn on automatic cleanup.

Clear Browser Cache from AppData

Note that web browsers store large amounts of cached data in the AppData folder. These amounts can grow to several gigabytes over time. For example:

Google Chrome cache is located here:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache

Microsoft Edge cache:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Cache

Mozilla Firefox cache can be found here:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*\cache2

You don’t need to manually delete files. We recommend you to clear browser cache using built-in browser settings:

• On Chrome:
  Go to Settings → Privacy → Clear browsing data
• On Edge:
  Navigate to Settings → Privacy → Clear browsing data
• On Firefox:
  Go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Clear Data

Keep in mind that you should manually delete the cache files only when browsers are closed.

Clean Up Storage with Windows 11 Settings

Windows 11 provides you with Cleanup recommendations to help identify files and apps that can safely be removed without manually browsing the AppData folder.

1. Press WIN+I to open Settings.
2. Go to System → Storage.
   

   

3. Select Cleanup recommendations.
4. Review the available categories, such as Temporary files, Large or unused files, Files synced to the cloud, and Unused apps.
5. Select the items you want to remove and click Clean up.

For ongoing automatic cleanup, you should enable Storage Sense under Settings → System → Storage → Storage Sense. Storage Sense can automatically remove temp files and manage items in the Recycle Bin and, when configured, locally available cloud content and Downloads.

Manually Delete Temp Files in AppData

Note that you can delete unused files from the %TEMP% folder without closing every app. Files currently in use by running processes may fail to delete and should be skipped. Follow the steps below:

1. Open the File Explorer, paste %temp% in the address box;
2. The Temp folder should open in the current user’s profile. (%Username%\AppData\Local\Temp). In our case, the size of the Temp folder is about 4GB;
3. Delete all (or selected) files from Temp folder;

   

4. Some files cannot be deleted because they are being used by other programs—which is normal. When you receive such a notification, check the “Do this for all current items” box and click Skip.
   

   

Clean AppData Using PowerShell

You can also use the PowerShell one-liner to quickly clean up the temporary files in the AppData folder.

Remove-Item `
-Path "$env:TEMP\*" `
-Recurse `
-Force `
-Confirm:$false `
-ErrorAction SilentlyContinue `
-Verbose

Note that some files may not be deleted because they are currently in use/inaccessible. -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue suppresses these errors, so the cleanup may be incomplete.

In order to reduce the risk of removing files that are still needed, our example below targets files older than seven days (files that are currently in use or otherwise cannot be removed are skipped):

$cutoff = (Get-Date).AddDays(-7)

Get-ChildItem -Path $env:TEMP -File -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
Where-Object { $_.LastWriteTime -lt $cutoff } |
Remove-Item -Force -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Should You Move AppData to Another Drive?

Generally, no. Windows does not provide a supported Location-tab workflow for moving the entire AppData folder.  You should avoid redirecting %LOCALAPPDATA% with junctions/symbolic links as a general disk-space solution. Use supported Folder Redirection for AppData/Roaming in domain environments where appropriate.

Wrapping up

You should start with Storage Sense for automatic cleanup. In case you are looking for one-time deep cleanup, you can use WinDirStat to identify large folders before deleting something.

Goal	Method
Quick cleanup	Navigate to Settings → Storage → Temporary files
Delete temp files	Remove-Item -Path “$env:TEMP\*” -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Analyze disk space usage	PowerShell script/WinDirStat
Clear UWP app data	Go to Settings → Apps → Reset
Move AppData to another drive	Not recommended. You should not move %LOCALAPPDATA% using junctions/symbolic links. %APPDATA% can be redirected with Group Policy Folder Redirection in specific domain/RDS cases.