Creating restore points periodically allows you to revert your Windows computer to a previous state when things go wrong. However, over time, these old restore points can become less valuable and take up precious storage space on your PC. Fortunately, Windows 11 allows you to delete outdated restore points, allowing you to make room for new ones.
Delete old restore points in Windows 11 through System Protection, Disk Cleanup utility or command line tool. In this post, we will guide you through these methods in detail. So let’s get straight to it.
1. How to delete old restore points through System Protection Settings
The fastest way to delete old restore points in Windows is through the System Protection settings. You can use this method to delete multiple restore points in Windows at once. Here are the steps for the same.
Step 1: Right-click the Start icon and select Run from the list.
Step 2: Enter sysdm.cpl in the box and press Enter.
Step 3: In the System Properties dialog box that opens, switch to the System Protection tab.
Step 4: Under Security Settings, select the drive you want to delete the system restore points from. Then click the Configure button.
Step 5: Click the Delete button to delete all restore points.
Step 6: Select Continue to confirm the operation.
Optionally, you can use the slider next to Maximum Usage to increase or decrease the amount of storage allocated to store System Restore Points on Windows. Then press Apply to save the changes.
2. How to delete old restore points with Disk Cleanup
Disk Cleanup is a useful Windows tool that allows you to free up storage space by deleting temporary files. With Disk Cleanup, you can keep the most recent restore point in Windows 11 and delete all others. If you want to do that, follow these steps:
Step 1: Click the search icon on the Taskbar, type Disk cleanup in the box and select the first result that appears.
Step 2: Use the drop-down menu to select the drive where you want to delete the old restore points. Then, click OK.
Step 3: Click the ‘Clean up system files’ button.
Step 4: Select Yes when the User Account Control (UAC) prompt appears.
Step 5: Reselect your drive and click OK.
Step 6: Switch to the More Options tab and click the Cleanup button under ‘System Restore and Shadow Clone.’
Step 7: Click the Delete button to confirm action.
3. How to Delete Old Restore Points Using Command Prompt or PowerShell
Command Prompt and PowerShell are built-in command line tools in Windows that are useful for performing advanced administrative tasks and troubleshooting various error messages. You can also use these tools to delete temporary files, old Windows update files, or restore points. Unlike the above methods, using Command Prompt or PowerShell allows you to select and delete specific restore points on your computer.
To delete old restore points using Command Prompt or PowerShell, follow these steps:
Step 1: Click the search icon on the taskbar or press the Windows + S key combination to open the search menu. Type cmd or PowerShell in the search box and select Run as administrator.
Step 2: Select Yes when the User Account Control (UAC) prompt appears.
Step 3: Type the following command into the console and press Enter to see the list of restore points stored on your system:
shadow vssadmin list
Step 4: Record the Shadow Copy ID of the restore point you want to delete.
Step 5: Paste the following command and press Enter to delete the restore point. Make sure you replace the Shadow Copy ID in the following command with the actual ID noted in the previous step.
vssadmin delete shadow /Shadow={shadow copy ID}
Step 6: Enter Y to confirm.
When you run the above command, Windows will delete the specified restore point. Alternatively, if you want to delete all existing restore points on Windows, run this command:
vssadmin remove shadow /all
Clean up clutter
While deleting restore points can help you regain disk space on your system, it is important to exercise caution as you will lose the ability to restore your system to its previous state if incident occurred.
Deleting old restore points in Windows 11 shouldn’t take long, whatever your method. Although we only talk about Windows 11 in this guide, you can also use the above methods to delete old restore points in Windows 10.
Categories: How to
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