Sceduled Disk Clean Up

Windows includes some handy tools to help keep your machine operating smoothly. One such tool is Disk Cleanup that can remove temp and old files to help you reclaim some hard drive space. You might want to set it up to run weekly or monthly depending on what works best for you. To schedule Disk Cleanup to run on a regular basis we need to schedule a task. For this example we’re using Windows 7, but the steps are essentially the same in Vista as well.

Click on the Start Menu and enter task scheduler into the search box and hit Enter.

The Task Scheduler opens and you’ll want to click on Action then select Create Basic Task.

The Create Basic Task Wizard comes up and from here type in a name for the task and a description then click Next.

Now select how often you want Disk Cleanup to run…Weekly, Daily, Monthly, One Time etc. There is not right or wrong answer to how often you run it. It’s completely up to you and you might want to try out some different schedules. In this example we’re going to select weekly.

Since we set it up to run weekly we need to schedule it when to start, how often it reoccurs, and which day of the week to run it.

Next under Action select Start a program

In the Program/script field type in cleanmgr.exe

Or you can hit browse and select Disk Cleanup which is in C:\Windowssystem32\cleanmgr.exe

Under Program/script you’ll see the path to Disk Cleanup as C:\Windows\system32\cleanmgr.exe

Then you’re shown a summary of the scheduled task and if everything looks correct click on Finish.

For this basic setting we scheduled it for a time when we know the computer will be in use. When it’s time for the Scheduled Task to occur it will pop up and you can run it by selecting the drive to clean up.

Disk Cleanup starts its calculations

Now the results and you can choose the files to delete.