At times you may get a Low Disk Space message or notification or warning popup from the right side of your Windows taskbar – You are running very low on disk space on disk, To free space on this drive by deleting old or unnecessary files click here.
Disable Low Disk Space message in Windows
The balloon notification is meant to warn you that you are running out of disk space. But at times, you may get it for no apparent reason.
If you feel you are truly running out of disk space, you might want to clean up some disk space.
Windows Vista checks for available disk space every minute, but Windows 7/8/10/11 and later, by default checks for available disk space every 10 minutes, and the pop-up remains for 10 seconds. This is by design, keeping in mind certain performance issues.
So it is quite possible that your Windows 11/10 may never warn you about this, while you actually consuming disk space, maybe when you are in the process of pasting large amounts of data. It may warn you when it is too late, ie after 10 minutes!
These are the threshold levels where you may see the pop-ups:
- Free space less than 200 MB: You are running out of disk space on the drive.
- Free space less than 80 MB: You are running very low on disk space on disk
- Free space less than 50 MB: You are running very low on disk space on disk
- No free space remaining: You have run out of disk space on the drive.
Using Registry Editor
If you want, you can disable this Low Disk Check through the Windows Registry. To do so open regedit and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Create a new DWORD Value named NoLowDiskSpaceChecks and give it value 1.
Using Ultimate Windows Tweaker
You can also always use our portable freeware Ultimate Windows Tweaker to do so easily. You will see it under Customization > File Explorer. There are different versions available for Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7.
Therefore, it may be a good idea to check your available drive space if you are planning to write a large amount of data to it.
You can use the Disk Cleanup utility or CCleaner to clear up some disk space.
Read: How to increase Hard Drive speed & performance in Windows.
If you wish to analyze where your disk space has gone, you can check out Disk Space Fan or Space Sniffer.
The Disk Footprint Tool in Windows 11/10 will let you carry out several tasks pertaining to Disk Space usage. You can use it to take snapshots, summaries, analyze disk usage, anonymize, compare growth over time using disk growth study, and more.
Is there any method to specify different thresholds for different drives?
nice tweak. could you tell me how do you put it back to default setting?
Victor: I’m afraid, you cannot specify different thresholds.
Brian: You can delete the created DWORD NoLowDiskSpaceChecks OR give it a value “0” (zero) or if you are using our Ultimate Windows Tweaker, re-enable the option and click Apply.
@ windows club
great thanks very helpful i used your Ultimate Windows Tweaker(which is a great well written program) so should be ok. i use a ssd for my paging file and have been getting the notification pop up for ages.
@ windows club
i have had to re-enable this function after experiencing problems. it was causing windows explorer to *freeze up* after re-enable windows explorer had no problems fine.
Hi Brian,
I have been disabling this notification ever since I remember. It is even disabled now with no issues. But since your experience differs, I think its good that you have renabled it. :)
Anand.
I have met the “low disk space” on my Windows 7 Ultimate recently. And I googled an article How to solve Windows 7 “low disk space” warning and solve my problem successfully. I share this article hoping can help anyone else.
http://www.partition-tool.com/resource/windows-7-partition-manager/windows-7-low-disk-space.htm
thx for sharing. good tool. thumb up
I do not have a folder labeled “explorer” under “policies”, can I create this DWord in the “polcies” folder for the same effect?
No, you would create the Explorer key, and put the DWord there. Or alternatively, put in the same place, but starting from HKLM rather than HKCU.
I did this and I still get the notifications.
me 2
me 3
Use our freeware Ultimate Windows Tweaker to disable it. Let us know if it worked for you. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-3-windows-8
Put the fix in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE instead of HKEY_CURRENT_USER
there is no fking
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer
in my windows 7
i see no such thing when i open up the registry
If you’re only missing the “Explorer” part, right-click on Policies and click New > Key, name it “Explorer”.
Also remember to reboot the computer after the changes.
I am using windows 10 and I don’t have last folder in the directory called explorer. I have added the new Dword value under the polices but I still experience this warning issue. I have multiple hard drives in my computer so it is giving me unnecessary warnings about hard drives that are full ( I know don’t need a warning for this) that aren’t part of the local disk or operating system.
Use our Ultimate Windows Tweaker to do this in a click: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-4-windows-10
This has not worked. Tried numerous times. Initially there was no folder call Explorer folder in the Policies folder so made one. There was an Explorer folder in the CurrentUser directory but that did not have a NoLowDiskSpaceCheck line. I added one there for good measure but no joy. From my reading, I am not the only one for whom this fix did not work.
Thanks
I want to delete annoying low disk space message in windows 10
Which setting on Windows Ultimate Tweaker do I need to change? I must be overlooking it.
” HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer
Create a new DWORD Value named NoLowDiskSpaceChecks and give it value 1″
So can I change the value to 2 ? I heard from one of my friends, he says i can change the value to 2, but it obstructs every warning when Windows gets wrong.
Or you can turn of and hide the notification in the properties of the taskbar. right click the taskbar and select properties and then show hide notifications and hide it.
Really? Registry editor? I have a backup partition and Windows is this stupid?
I don’t want Windows to keep notifying me but I still want it to check before it tries to write a file that’s too big to fit. Also there was no Explorer folder thing inside Policies and when I added it along with the advised key, the notifications didn’t stop.
That is a great tip, thx a million
You will see it under Customization > File Explorer.
hi i have a bran new conputer its a pavilion windows 10 and low disc spaces keeps coming up and i have lots and lots of soace how do i shut this off
For me there is no explorer file in Policies, there is no folder at all inside of policies, there is a separate explorer file in the current version but not under policies
I am having the same issue with there being no Explorer folder. for me this all started after a recent update in windows that seems to have decided that one of the tiny leftover partitions from when i put my SSD’d in a raid 0 volume is actually a d drive … i also cant just delete or modify the partition label so that windows ignores it like it used to
also cunningly enough even tho there are no files on the drive that i can find with either file explorer , the command prompt CLI or Powershell the partition apparently only has 41.5 of 449 M free yes it created me a 449 M nothing drive
Does not work, issue is after Policies there is no explorer drop down in my windows 10 to modify, and changing those values in policies does nothing.
I am getting the low disk space on disk F: disk F: is my cdrom drive and if you go to the drive there is nothing found. Can I disable it just for disk F?