Surface RT Tablet Memory - How much should I have, where did it go, how do I get it back?

For Surface RT running 8.0:

You can see the storage space left by swiping from the right, choosing Settings, Change PC Settings, then General, and pan down a way.... you'll see "Available storage", and there's a button for individual app size.

There doesn't seem to be an accurate AND quick way to see the battery remaining, but for a quick way, when you're on the Start screen swipe from the right edge of the screen. An approximate battery indicator (100%/75/50/25/not-dead-yet style) shows up near the time.

For per-drive/folder/file detail on free space, and detailed battery, you can go to the old "Desktop" experience. From the Start screen swipe up, choose "All Apps" if necessary, then choose "Desktop". The battery symbol is here (in the lower right corner) and you can touch on that, or if you have a mouse/trackpad, point at it, to see the exact battery percentage, and you can touch on the folder symbol on the lower left to get to the File Explorer where exquisite detail on the file system usage is exposed.

For Surface RT running 8.1:

Storage usage & actions for individual apps has moved to Settings, Change PC Settings, Search And Apps, App sizes. New cloud storage detail is at Settings, Change PC Settings, SkyDrive, File storage -- if you use the default settings for SkyDrive, then this is key to how many documents/photos you can store, as in 8.1 files are synced to SkyDrive as needed, & do not always have to take up space on the PC.

Otherwise, my tips for Windows 8.0 for seeing battery % and per-drive/folder/file level usage detail... that's all still the same in 8.1 as in 8.0 and older versions of Windows.

Yes it can be found by going to desktop then clicking on the file explorer icon  (folder) on the taskbar and selecting computer then drive c it will then be found under the manage tab

Hope this helps

Hi,

Certain apps and programs use a lot of space which take up most of the internal storage of your Surface device. Using additional external storage for you to transfer your current apps into will help free up some space and optimize your device. You can refer to the link giver by fatou8 on the comment above for more information.

Regards.

Suzy1516,

Thanks for your query and sorry for the troubles with your Surface.

Allow me to ask you the following: Would you consider resetting your Surface? I would suggest doing so will setup your Surface as if it were brand new again.

• A reset reinstalls Windows and apps that came installed on your Surface.
• All of your personal files will be deleted, and your settings will be reset. All apps that you installed will be removed. For info on backing up your files, see Back up your files!\[\](https://www.microsoft.com/surface/assets/img/external.png).
• After a reset, you’ll be able to set up your Surface as if it were brand new.

Additional information can be found here.

Please keep us posted.

On Thu, 12 Mar 2015 15:03:42 +0000, John Wickham wrote:

>>My first question was whether future updates will continue to reduce the available space. When the computer was new I think it had about 13GB system files and about 13GB free space for me to use. I haven't used more than 1GB but the free disk space has decreased by much more than that.

You can run Disk Cleanup again in the future. Yes, updates will take some space.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Barb

Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

Please mark as answered if this answers your question

Try doing a reset. This has worked for other people.

Hello Renilsaac,

I'm sorry to hear about this experience. You should reach out to our Support Team here. They will give you further assistance.

Let us know how it goes.

Best Wishes,

Zack_T

Hello FrederickFarrar,

I'm sorry to hear that. Have you tried the options mentioned in this thread? Did you find a windows.old file? Are you able to free up some space by transferring files to OneDrive and deleting them on the Surface? If a refresh doesn't work, have you tried backing up any important data and doing a reset?

Let us know if any of these help.

Best Wishes,

Zack_T

The WinSXS cleaning service has always has been running.

I did counting the system reported my apps are 9.1gb and I have 1.7gb free, so the total amount seems to be right now. I think want really makes different might be that I moved OneDrive folder to my SD card.

I can guarantee that you have never seen it saying "6GB free of 32GB" - because it would NEVER say the total capacity as 32GB. that's not how windows reports storage. even if magically you could delete all the stuff on the disk, windows would only say that the total capacity was about 29GB (in binary format). 32GB is calculated in decimal format.

then take around 3GB for the recovery partition... there you go, 26GB left.

Saru2010...thank you, tried your suggestion and it freed up about 300mb. I also found that adjusting my email cache would free up additional space..... tried it and I got back almost 2gbs more!

Actually, it is pretty simple and has been available in all versions of Windows.

Go to the Desktop and open the File Manager.  Click on "This PC" and right-click on "Local Drive C:".  In the menu, select "Properties".

It will display space used and space available.

No, in the search box, type in "disk cleanup" without the quotes.

Just use micro-SD cards and relocate Skydrive to the card also.  The tablet runs disk cleanup on its anyhow if left idle for some time along with a defrag.

Updates are also performed automatically in most cases and take up little or no extra space since they are replacing existing files and only add a few bits for any extra files installed.

With micro-SD cards, you have the potential of unlimited storage that way.  The card can remain in the tablet all the time.  The Video and Music Xbox Live apps will automatically catalog the files located on the card once you add the card to their search parameters.  For instance, with Xbox Live Video, click on "Choose where to look..." and you can add the micro-SD card in the search scheme.  Music will be automatic and you may have to wait a few moments before it catalogs them.

You do that, the only thing that will be on the tablet itself will be the programs and you should have around 40 plus percent left free if the recovery image is still in the system.  That would be plenty of space in case you download files onto the tablet itself for which you can move to the micro-SD card later.

Hello Toni_ko,

Thank you for reaching out. I understand that you are experiencing issue with disk storage on your Surface RT. At this point, I'll suggest to refreshhttp://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/refresh-or-reset-surfacethe system and install Windows RT 8.1.

Hope that will help. Please let us know.

Thank you for posting in the Microsoft community.

Regards,

Greetings Toklh,

You may also get some information from the following FAQ.

Greetings asrohde,

Sorry to hear about your situation. Please see the following article regarding Disk Space.

I have the 32GB model and a little over half the storage is used with the installed system plus the image/recovery.  For a 64GB model, that used space would be about 1/3 maybe 1/4.  The 64GB model would be ideal if you have a huge amount of data to carry with you but you can always add additional storage with micro-SD cards as well.

Apparently I had one too many apps in my surface that was taking the space.  Desktop file manager can't be trusted to show space occupied because metro apps folder (winapps) in C:\Program Files shows as 0 under properties.  But if you manually total "view app sizes" values in pc settings-> general you will know actual storage occupied by metro apps.  I uninstalled apps and reclaimed space.

Jean,

Can you confirm that you used the "clean system files" option in the disk cleanup tool and that you ticked all the boxes before deleting the old files?

From my experience, the error reporting log files can grow to very large sizes (more than a Gb).

Hello jeanmaurer,

Sorry to hear that your Surface is losing space.

You can run Disk cleanup to remove unwanted files. you can find the steps and more details here.

Hope this helps.

Best regards.

Greetings Hafiza,

Sorry to hear about your Disk Space. You may find more information about Disk Space in this FAQ.

Greetings Hafiza,

Please contact Surface Technical Supportand let them know what you are experiencing.

Hi JulianCJx.

Steven is correct, the Disk Clean up will clear out any unnecessary files and improve the performance of Surface.  For more information and instructions on deleting files using Disk Clean up, you may want to check this link out.

Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Greetings JulianCJx,

Yes, you can run Disk Cleanup and let it take out everything it finds, it will not negatively impact the Surface.

Greetings MicahMcFarland,

Please try the following:

1. Press the Windows Key
2. Touch Desktop
3. Swipe from the Right to open the Charms Menu
4. Touch Settings
5. Touch Control Panel
6. Set the view to Icons (small or large)
7. Touch Administrative Tools

From there, you can run Disk Cleanup and Defragment and Optimize Drives. Try running Defragment and Optimize Drives and let me know if there is a change in the free space size. Also if you open Disk Cleanup, there is an option to clean up System Files which may help.

Remember when doing a refresh a windows.old folder is sometimes left over and does not get cleaned up. You may have to manually delete it.

This page explains how the Surface manages its storage space:

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/support/surface-with-windows-RT/files-folders-and-online-storage/surface-disk-space-faq

On a 32GB Surface you should have, if you were to check after first setting it up out of the box, about 16GB worth of free space. If you, from there, download a lot of apps, movies and music the space on your Surface will fill up very quickly.

I would recommend running the Disk Cleanup utility by searching for it in the Charms Bar -> Search -> Search for Disk Cleanup -> Select Settings under the search field -> Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files.

This thread may or may not also be helpful as sometimes a Windows.old folder may end up hidden away on your device that will eat up a bunch of space. There is information in the thread that can help deal with that if it is the case.

I hope that helps!

This article helps solve the case of the missing space:

https://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/support/surface-with-windows-RT/files-folders-and-online-storage/surface-disk-space-faq

Kate

Greetings IRCadiente,

You should be able to delete the contents of the folder without a problem, so long as you do not delete the folder itself. You can also do Disk Cleanup which may help.

This disk space FAQ was recently posted on the Surface website (it tells you where your disk space went):

http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/support/surface-with-windows-rt/files-folders-and-online-storage/surface-disk-space-FAQ

Kate

Hi yh.l,

You can always go ahead and remove the printer by doing the following:

Swipe in from the right

Tap the Settings charm

Tap Change PC settings

Tap Devices

Tap the device in question

Tap the circle with the dash through it on the right

Tap Remove from the confirmation screen

Here is a link to an article that gives a full breakdown of the available space on your Surface:

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/support/surface-with-windows-RT/files-folders-and-online-storage/surface-disk-space-faq

Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Thanks!

Hi silentmav,

Great question! Some of the Surface disk space is used by built-in apps and by the Windows features that can help you protect and recover the stuff you store on your Surface.

Here’s a breakdown of disk space for the 32 GB and 64 GB models (rounded down to the nearest GB):

* The advertised local disk size is shown using the decimal system, while Windows displays the disk size using the binary system. As a result, 1 GB (in decimal) appears as about 0.93 GB (in binary). The storage capacity is the same, it's just shown differently depending on the how you measure a GB (decimal or binary).

Please let us know if you have any other question.

Thanks!