Limited disk space keeps being filled on Windows 10

I'm having problems on my PC due to a lack of disk space. Now, I do have a lot of disk space on the computer, on the HDD where I store files and programs, mapped to the D: drive. The operating system and any programs I cannot custom install are on a much smaller SSD, mapped to the C: drive.

It is this C: drive which is running into a problem of constantly being full, and it isn't very clear what is taking up so much space. At first, I thought of the usual suspects of deleting large, obsolete documents and programs, until I remembered that all these are located on the D: drive, so deleting them would have no effect on freeing up space on C: .

This is where things get bizarre, because deleting documents somehow does free up space on C:, despite the document being kept on D:. And now that C: is completely full, I am getting an error message on Microsoft Office saying they can't save documents due to the disk being full, except I'm not saving the document on C:, so there is no way the disk could be full.

Is there some kind of cache on C: being created by programs I've installed in D:, like Microsoft Office? If so, how do I stop them doing that or tell them to move it to D: so the C: drive doesn't keep getting full?

This is frustrating because my computer has been partitioned this way since the day I bought it, and I had a lengthy conversation about it online but people were emphatic that I should have no problems keeping all data on the HDD, while keeping the operating system on the SSD, and yet these space problems still plague me a year later.

I know it is a bit of an open question but if I could just have a solution for Microsoft Office alone that should help a lot. I've added screenshots from the program WinDir to illustrate what I mean, that it isn't very clear where this "bloat" is coming from.

Edit: It seems my comments are being deleted, in which I explain that the provided answer didn't help and I actually didn't recover disk space, and I was requesting more information/better answer. Also, one comment that was deleted was suggesting that I should repartition the disk to give Windows more space, which I think is a good idea, and I just asked how much space Windows should have (given that 60 GB is too small).

Windir output 1 Windir output 2 Windir output 3 Disk manager output


The Windows partition takes up the largest space and should be attacked first.
Check and delete the contents of:

  • C:\Windows\Temp
  • C:\Windows\Minidump
  • C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp

Skip any files to which you don't have the permissions to delete.

Second, empty the Recycle Bin by right-click on its desktop icon.

Third, if you use System Restore, reduce its space. See the article
Make System Restore in Windows 10 Use Less Disk Space.
You need about 2 GB for each restore point, so don't reduce it below 4-5 GB.

Fourth, check that the page-file is not larger than your RAM, or move it entirely to the D: drive.
See How to Change the Windows Pagefile Sizes.

These manipulations should free several gigabytes of disk space on C:.