Free up hard drive space without deleting a single file (XP and Vista)
This is an amazing feature that I have seen on my computer a year ago but I can’t believe I never touched it until recently. I was able to free up gigabytes of spaces on many of my drives using this feature. And this was the result:
Before:
After (7.5GB freed):
There is no specific name for this feature but for the sake of this article, let’s call it Windows Compression. Windows (XP or Vista) is able to compress any file on the fly, and will indicate it by turning the file name blue.
When you compress a file or folder, the file will look and behave exactly as before. If you’re worried about slowdowns in decompressing, there won’t be any because Windows Explorer is able to decompress on the fly. (For anyone that believes this claim is false, I specifically looked this up through many sources, and having tested it myself, it does not produce any slowdowns)
Before you compress, you should know that:
- Files/folders/drives encrypted cannot be compressed and vice versa
- Once a folder or drive is encrypted, any file that enters the folder or drive will automatically be encrypted
- Compression only works on NTFS drives
You are NOT recommended to:
- Compress a drive with system files on it: That being said, do NOT ever compress any drive with an operating system. Doing this will sabotage your computer. A compressed file can only be decompressed with Windows Explorer or an application. If you compress your system files, you won’t be able to boot up!
- Compress a drive: I do not recommend you compress a drive unless you are absolutely sure that there are no system files on it. If you have created a partition for the purpose of storing your word documents, that should be fine.
- Compress program files or game files: Any files that are part of a program or game should not be compressed. Depending on the program, it may increase load time dramatically. To be on the safe side, it is best not to compress such files.
Compressing Folders and Files:
First, right click on a folder or file of your choice and choose Properties, then click on Advanced.
Once you’re at this screen, all you have to do is click on “Compress contents to save disk space” and choose OK. Now you’re back at the folder properties. Click on Apply and this window should come up:
This is simply asking you if you want to apply compression to the folder only, or if you also want it to compress the folders inside and the files within. Choose an option, click OK and your computer will do its work. Depending on the number of files and size, compression may take a while.
Once it is finished, you can right click the folder and choose properties to see how much your folder was compressed.
About 30MB, which is not too bad for a couple of word documents and other files 
Compressing a Drive:
Before you compress a drive, I just want to remind you to NEVER compress any drive with an operating system on it. Doing so will make your computer unbootable.
Compressing a drive is really easy. Simply right click a drive and choose Properties. The “Compress this drive to save disk space” option is right at the bottom. Just check it and click OK to compress.
This is a great feature and everyone should use it.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:41 am
[...] Free up hard drive space without deleting a single file (XP and Vista) [...]
March 12th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
You should mention that your disk needs to be using an NTSF file system. on most modern XP (or better) machines, most people probably won’t encounter anything older, but some of us have older drives that we’ve imported in from older machines to have secondary storage that are still formatted at FAT32. (yeah, one of these days, I’ll transfer all my music off of there and onto a new, shiny, NTSF-formatted drive, but in my situation, and for primarily storing *just* a collection of mp3s, using an old 80-gig FAT32 is serviceable… but it won’t compress as a function of the operating system, naturally.
March 13th, 2008 at 1:06 am
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you
March 13th, 2008 at 11:53 am
It’s called NTFS compression.
April 1st, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Really? You’re recommending disk compression? Sorry to burst the bubbles of anyone reading, or who has read this, but compressing and decompressing on the fly DOES use system resources, and DOES cause slowdown… unsurprisingly, if you think about it (duh). If you need to clear up 7 whole GB that bad, go buy a new hard drive. The money will be well spent against storage woes, and the aggravation of slow, historically /unreliable/ disk compression.
(By Horus’ eye, I could hardly believe I was reading this article, and that “everyone should use” this feature. Bad, bad, bad advice, you should be ashamed.)
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
it is NTFS lol NTSF
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I have made the change. Honestly on my system, there was nothing noticeable. If you experience anything noticeable on your computer, please let me know. This is why I do not recommend compressing entire drives and system files
April 12th, 2008 at 10:37 am
I compressed a 125 GB D: drive (virtual memory — all music) with no noticeable effect — except the file name turned blue!
=;-}
April 25th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Good advice actually. When I install a new system I always enable compression when creating volumes/partitions that will store non-system files and documents and installers. But if you plan to store only mp3s and xvid/divx movies on the drive there’s no use to enable compression as it can’t compress it any further. It doesn’t slow the system as like you said decompression is done on the fly and it will actually be a little efficient since it will only read fewer bytes on the hard disk as compared to the uncompressed one. BUT, it will be slower if you copy a file from an uncompressed drive/folder and vice versa, but faster if from and to compressed drives/folders because it has fewer bytes to copy.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I compressed the whole C: drive (with the operating system on it) on my old computer by right clicking the drive and selecting the option to compress. I have been able to boot up with no problems for years. It didn’t sabotage my computer as you said it would.
@Duane Lampe: If the feature is there, why not use it? Who would go and buy Netscape Navigator and pay good money when you’ve got Internet Explorer on the OS for free (or when you can download other browsers off the net at no cost) ?
June 9th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Hello, i’m doing this rgiht now but i have one question. When it compresses what does it really change and if nothing changes but the folder going blue then how come it isnt normally like that to save disk space? I just hope it works because I want to download a game and i dont have much space so… and im using it on a folder full of pictures. is that okay??
July 1st, 2008 at 11:25 pm
When you compress a file, it means that every time you open it, it will have to decompress. You should not compress game files because that will have an effect on loading time.
July 8th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
So are you saying that you cannot compress videos and mp3 files? Basically just document files? I have an e-library that is 55GB So I definitely will use it for this, but I also have 77GB worth of movies, etc. :/ I’m a packrat even on my computer…sadness…
July 8th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Not cannot but should not. You can try it, it will take a while, but from the 77GB, you will save maybe 1 or 2 GB (maybe even less). I don’t suggest it. It could also cause problems when the files are moved onto an MP3.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Local disk(C:)
Used space….7.68 mb
Free space….159 kb
Capacity……7.84mb
if anyone can help me with this it would be great. i can not download any files to my c drive with out it saying i need to free up space on my drive. there is hardly any thing on my c drive. i just need to get more space one it…what should i do/ can i do anything. thanks.
July 13th, 2008 at 7:19 am
I hope this works cuz i have got so less disk space
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:20 pm
From a pure computer science point of view, Compressing will affect your computer. It will work best on document and other file formats that can be compressed. What it generally will not do is make mp3’s or videos smaller, these are already in a compressed file format so will make little difference.
There are some cases where compressing lots of smaller files can actually end up making the archive bigger as it has to keep track of what is compressed.
As its been said, if you are really desperate for more space, burn stuff to disk, delete things or heaven forbid by a new disk.
“(For anyone that believes this claim is false, I specifically looked this up through many sources, and having tested it myself, it does not produce any slowdowns)”.
Of course it can otherwise the entire thing couldn’t run! How exactly could it run if this wasn’t the case? It will call a function to decompress the file if the operating system calls it.
All it adds is another layer between the disk and the os where the entire file needs to be loaded decompress and then actioned. this will take longer the less ram the system has and the bigger the file is.
September 13th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Compression in most cases will NOT slow up the computer and in some cases will make it faster. This is counter-intuitive, but those saying it will slow the computer up are not looking at the total picture.
Yes, the computer will take more processing time because of the need to decompress/decompress, but processing speed is very fast. It will take less time to load/unload the file because the file is smaller (compressed). Because disk loading speed is relatively slow and processing speed is fast, you actually win or have a tie when you look at the total time required to compress/uncompress.
Don’t look at just processing time in isolation.
September 13th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Greg I think you probably hit it on the point. Although I’m not as familiar with this as I am with the other features, I’m almost 100% sure using this feature will only be a win-situation providing you followed my warnings and recommendations.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:27 am
hi
i added a 2nd hard drive to my pc and for a week it worked fine but on the 2nd one when i added it i compressd it and today i was useing my MP3 player and and all the songs it started jumping/cutout for 1/10 of a sec so i turn it off and i take the 2nd one out and now it works fine could that be what it is the main drive was not compresed
and i got one more thing to ask on the if i can i was told that the dasktop uses ram not the HD if i was to move lets say a 6gb folder to dasktop would i get slowdowns i keep it clear only thing that is there is doc. my comp recyele bin and network places and internet exp. i use windows XP any help would help thx
October 14th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I have a HP windows xp 2800+ 2.08GHz, 960MB of Ram. For the past 2 weeks it has been warning me of low disk space on D drive. I couldn’t figure out why this happened all of a sudden when I barely use this computer other then to play games or check emails, occassional word documents and photos. I was so frustrated not knowing what happened that I restored to factory settings and needless to say, that didn’t correct anything. From one day to the next (literally) my disk space is even lower. Can anyone help me figure this out. I’ve performed disk cleanups on both C and D drive several times and nothing! I’ve checked for unwanted files and I dont see anything, especially since I’ve rebooted the system back to factory, wiping out everything I had. I did reinstall my printer and camera and since noticed the space is even lower. Don’t know how that plays such a BIG part in this issue but just thought I’d throw that in there. I always clear my caches at the end of each day so that is clear as well. The D drive is reporting to have used space 3.82GB and Free Space 646MB with a capacity of 4.45GB
Seeking help,
Mimi