How to Defrag a Windows 10 Computer

How to Defrag a Windows 10 Computer

Defragmenting (or “defragging”) a Windows 10 computer arranges fragmented files on the hard drive in a manner that optimizes the amount of disk space and increasing system performance.

When you defragment the hard drive, all fragments of files are moved to contiguous clusters. This makes it easy for Windows to read the files and the computer starts working faster.

On your computer with Windows 10, defragmenting only the system drive (C: ) is sufficient. However, if you experience long load times while accessing the files stored in other partitions of the hard disk, you can defragment them as well.

The process of defragmenting the partitions of a hard disk drive is identical for every partition (volume). Here is how to defrag your computer.

1.Sign in to your Windows 10 computer with an administrator account. It is important to use an administrator account because standard account holders cannot defrag the hard disk drive.

2.Click the Start button.

3.From the left pane of the Start menu, click File Explorer.

4.On the opened window, from the navigation pane in the left, expand the This PC tree.

5.From the expanded list, right-click Local Disk (C: ) or any other partition on which Windows 10 is installed.

6.From the context menu, click Properties.

7.On the opened Local Disk (C: ) Properties box, go to the Tools tab.

8.From the displayed interface, under the Optimize and defragment drive section, click the Optimize button.

9. On the Optimize Drives box, from the displayed list, ensure that the system drive (C: in this example) is selected.

10.Click the Analyze button from below the list.

11. Wait until Windows completes the analysis and displays the percentage of the fragmented files in the selected drive.

Note: If there are no fragmented files in the drive, Windows displays a message box stating that the disk does not need to be defragmented.

12.After Windows completes the analysis, click the Optimize button to start the defragmentation process on the selected volume.

13.Wait until Windows defragments the drive successfully, restart the PC, and start using Windows 10 normally.