Best Smart PC Cleaner for Windows OS

What are junk files?

Junk files are temporary files that were produced so that your computer or phone could execute particular activities but are no longer required. These files were once useful since applications, apps, and operating systems needed to generate temporary files in order to do computing activities. However, after they have served their role, these files become obsolete.

We use our computers and cellphones for a range of functions, such as site surfing, document opening, and photo viewing. Computers employ temporary files to conduct all of these activities, which become obsolete as the task is completed.

However, when these garbage files are amassed on your hard disk, issues may occur. All of those files take up a lot of storage space, and when your storage capacity is depleted, your device may become slower or face other performance difficulties.

Main types of junk files

Because various computing jobs necessitate the usage of different types of temporary files, not all garbage files are the same. Files needed to operate Microsoft Word are not the same as files produced when you open a web browser. However, some forms of garbage files are more prevalent than others.

Start with the typical suspects for removing trash files. The following are the most typical forms of trash files found on computers:

1. Temporary Internet files
Cache files are another name for temporary internet files. They are made and saved as you browse and are then loaded if (and only if) you return to a website. When you think about how many sites you visit and never return to, most of these caches are inactive for good.

2. Temporary system files
When you turn on or off your computer, the system files are produced and kept in order to launch or shut down certain vital functionalities or start up programs. Once they have served their usefulness, system rubbish files become obsolete.

3. Installer files
Installer files are produced to aid in the installation of applications and apps on your device. However, after the installation is finished, these files become outdated. When you install new programs, keep an eye out for potentially unwanted software (PUPs) and other garbage that may be included.

4. Thumbnails
Thumbnails help a picture load faster if you see it again, however, most of the time you will only use them once or there will be long gaps between revisiting the same image. If you need to reopen the image, a new thumbnail is always produced.

5. Deleted/Recycle Bin Files
Even when you erase files, remains are frequently left behind. Destroyed or Recycle Bin files are the remnants of files that have been erased or deleted. Deleted files remain in your storage until you empty your Recycle Bin or garbage.

Where are junk files from?

Junk files are formed as a result of all computing processes, and they quickly accumulate. When your computer completes certain activities, the files required to do so are no longer required. If you let garbage files accumulate, your computer's performance may suffer. To avoid these issues, frequently cleaning garbage files can keep your device running well.

How to clean all kinds of junk files?

Since they might resemble any other file, junk files are not always simple to be found. They're frequently concealed deep within subfolders on your system. Although not impossible, manually looking for and eliminating garbage files is often time-consuming and wasteful.

In Windows, the system has some built-in tools to help users do some basic cleaning.

1. Use Windows built-in to clean junk files

▶ Disk Cleanup

Disk Cleanup can help users search and delete unnecessary files, so they can free up disk storage space on the disk on their PC.

Step 1. Press Windows + S, search for Disk Cleanup, and double-click the search result to open this tool.

Step 2. In the pop-up window, select the drive you want to clean up from the drop-down menu and click OK.

Step 3. Wait patiently until the tool finishes scanning this drive. Then, in the new window, click Clean up system files to scan for more system cache.

▶ Storage Sense

In the Settings, you can turn on Storage Sense to delete junk files.

Click "Start" and "Settings" in turn, then click "System". In the new window, click "Storage" and turn on "Storage Sense".

▶ File Explorer

You can also manually delete temp files in File Explorer.

The files are stored in the path of C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp.

Step 1. Press Windows + R to open Run window, input %temp% and click OK to open the Temp folders. Then, delete all the temporary files and folders in it.

2. Use a smart PC cleaner to clean junk files efficiently

You see, if you manually search junk files on your PC, and clean them one by one, it will consume you lots of time. And as we mentioned before, there are hidden junk files deeply in numerous folders. It’s impossible to clean them thoroughly. Therefore, here we sincerely recommend you AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, a free smart PC cleaner for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP users.

The “PC Cleaner” function can scan your device and classify all junk files to help you judge what you want to keep and what you can delete. When the scan is finished, you only need to click the button to thoroughly clean selected junk files.

Now, you can free download an optimizer to clean your computer.

Step 1. Download and open AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, and click “Free up” in the top toolbar and choose “PC Cleaner” in turn.

Step 2. Click "Start Scan" in the new pop-up window to scan your computer for unwanted files.

Step 3. After starting the scan, please wait for a while until the progress bar is loaded.

Step 4. Unneeded data will be automatically selected, you can directly click "Clean All" to delete them. If you still have other unnecessary files, you can tick the boxes of the corresponding files.

Step 5. When you see a correct symbol displayed in the interface, you can click "Back" to leave the function.

Ending

If you don’t know how to choose a smart PC cleaner, a cache cleaner, or a cleaning app, AOMEI Partition Assistant is an excellent option. In addition, this tool is also an advanced system optimizer. After upgrading to the Professional Edition, you can clone disk, migrate OS to another disk, convert disk between MBR/GPT without data loss, move installed programs, etc. And if you need it, this tool also has the Server Edition for Windows Server users.