Every Windows PC is full of system folders that most of us don’t pay attention to or touch. And rightly so. These are all critical parts of the operating system that keep things running smoothly, and messing with the wrong file or folder can easily lead to errors. But that doesn’t mean all of these folders are untouchable.
I recently came across a folder called DriverStore, which was consuming close to 22GB of my PC’s storage. What’s interesting is that I managed to reclaim most of that space without breaking anything.
What’s the purpose of the DriverStore folder?
And why you should care
DriverStore does exactly what its name suggests. It’s the place where Windows keeps all the non-Microsoft driver packages. Every time your PC installs a driver for a graphics card, webcam, printer, network adapter, or any other device, Windows first stores a clean copy of that driver package here.
As you continue to use your PC, Windows inevitably ends up storing multiple drivers for the same hardware. The reason behind this is simple. If a newer version of a driver causes problems, this folder lets Windows fall back to an older one quickly. This is also handy to repair corrupted drivers or reinstall them after you’ve removed them using Device Manager.
You can find the DriverStore folder by heading to C: > Windows > System32 on your PC. In my case, it was taking around 22 GB of storage, but this number can vary wildly from one PC to another. It all comes down to what hardware you’re using, how long Windows has been installed, and how frequently you install driver updates.
For instance, if your PC has a dedicated graphics card, the DriverStore folder is likely to contain multiple graphics drivers. Each of these can easily exceed 1GB in size, which increases the overall size of the DriverStore folder.
Is it safe to delete the DriverStore folder?
Yes, but you need to be careful
As you can probably tell at this point, it’s not safe to delete the DriverStore folder outright. In fact, if you try to delete files manually, you’ll encounter the infamous Folder Access Denied error.
There’s a good reason for that. The DriverStore folder is a core part of Windows. Deleting it would remove the safety net Windows relies on. Also, on most lightly used PCs, you won’t find DriverStore consuming more than 3 to 5 GB of storage, which isn’t that huge.
But if you’re like me and notice this folder taking a huge chunk of storage space, it’s possible to trim it down. You can do this by deleting some of the older driver packages that Windows is still holding on to.
How I cleaned the DriverStore folder without breaking anything
It was easier than I thought
Cleaning the DriverStore folder isn’t something you should ever do manually, even if you know what you’re doing. The good news is that there’s a safer and much easier way to handle it. Driver Store Explorer is a free, open-source tool that can help you with this.
This tool can automatically scan the DriveStore folder on your PC and help you remove older drivers with a couple of clicks. Once you run it, it shows a list of driver packages stored inside the DriverStore folder. You’ll see useful details like driver version, provider, size, and installation date.
You can use the checkboxes to select the drivers you don’t want and hit the Delete Drivers button. Of course, the tricky part is knowing which drivers are safe to remove. Don’t worry, this tool helps you with that too.
Click the Select Old Drivers button, and the tool will automatically select all the drivers that are safe to remove and show the total size of the selected files at the bottom. You can then hit the Delete Drivers button to get rid of them, and you’re done.
- OS
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Windows
- Price model
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Free, open-source
Driver Store Explorer is a free tool that lets you delete old driver packages on Windows and clean the DriverStore folder.
Stop DriverStore from filling up unnecessarily
Driver updates are absolutely essential, but there are a few things you can do to keep the DriverStore folder from filling up too quickly. For starters, try to avoid those optional updates you see inside the Windows Update tab. These are updates that you can safely ignore most of the time.
Another thing you can do is avoid using those driver updater tools. Tools from GPU vendors, for instance, often tend to install full driver packages every time they update, even if the changes are minor. And when that happens, Windows keeps older versions inside DriverStore as a fallback, which adds up over time.
And finally, running the Driver Store Explorer every few months can also help. It’s a lightweight tool that doesn’t take much time.
