What is the Windows.old Folder and How To Delete It in Windows 11

Have you upgraded Microsoft Windows lately to a new version of Windows?

You have a Windows.old folder on your computer, and it’s wasting a huge amount of space.

You can delete it but not like you’d delete a normal folder.

The Windows.old folder isn’t something new with Windows 10, but before Windows 10, you would only see it if you purchased a new version of Windows and performed an upgrade install on a PC that came with a previous version of Windows.

How to Delete the Windows.old Folder to Free Up Space

The Windows.old folder can take up quite a bit of space, anything from 10 to 20 GB. A lot depends on your previous Microsoft Windows installation and how large it was.

If you try to delete the Windows.old folder from File Explorer, you will receive an error message that you do not have permission.  You could potentially bypass this error message by modifying with the Windows.old folder’s permissions but the easier way is to use the Disk Cleanup app.

Please beware that once you delete the Windows.old folder, you will not be able to restore back to the previous version of Windows. 

But, Windows normally removes these files automatically after a week or two anyway.

To delete this folder with Disk Cleanup, follow these steps:

1. Type in "Disk Clean" in the Search Box on the taskbar

2. Select Disk Clean-up under App

3. Select Clean up system files

4. Locate Previous Windows installation(s) and make sure it is ticked, then click OK to delete these files from your computer.

Depending on the speed of your computer, this can take 5-30 minutes.