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How to Enable or Disable Reserved Storage in Windows 10

Reserved storage takes up a lot of space in your system. When on low disk space, you can disable reserved storage in Windows 10. Here is how.

In the new version of Windows 10, Microsoft introduced a new feature called Reserved Storage. As you can tell from the feature name itself, Reserved Storage puts aside some amount of space so that the system can use it to update and upgrade your system. Additionally, the reserved storage is also used for temporary files, system apps, and system cache.

The main intention of the reserved storage feature is to avoid “your disk is full” or “low disk space” notifications while updating or upgrading Windows or other system files and apps. The only problem with Reserved Storage is that it can occupy a lot of disk space. If you are already low on disk space, allotting that much space to feature that doesn’t get used often is a waste. If you don’t like this behavior, you can disable reserved storage on Windows 10.

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How Much Storage Space is Set Aside for Reserved Storage

In general, Windows puts aside around 7GB of your C drive space as reserved storage. However, depending on your usage, Windows may choose to increase the reserved storage space.

Two major components that affect the size of reserved storage on Windows 10 are optional features and installed languages.

By default, most of the optional features are disabled. When needed, you can enable the optional feature you want from the control panel or settings app. For instance, Windows Sandbox and Linux Subsystem for Windows are optional features and should be manually enabled to use them. Depending on how many optional features you’ve enabled, Windows may increase the reserved storage space accordingly to maintain and update those additional and optional features.

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The same applies to the installed languages on your system. The more languages you install, the more space is added to the reserved storage to manage and update those language-specific files.

Where Can I See How Much Space is Reserved

To find how much space is reserved on your system, open the Settings app and go to “System -> Storage.” On the right panel, find and click on the “Show more categories” link.

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Now, click on the “System and Reserved” option. You will see how much space is set aside as reserved storage under the “Reserved Storage” section.

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Reserved Storage feature is only available in Windows 10 build 18312 or higher and on version 1903 or higher.

Disable Reserved Storage on Windows 10

To disable reserved storage, you need to change to a registry value. So, back up the registry and follow the below instructions, and you should be good.

  1. Press Win + R to open Run dialog box.
  2. Type regedit and press Enter to open Windows Registry.
  3. In the editor, go to the following location. You can copy and paste the below path in the registry address bar.
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ReserveManager
  4. On the right-panel, find and double-click on the “ShippedWithReserves” value.
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  5. Change value data to “0“.
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  6. Click on the “Ok” button to save changes.
  7. Close registry editor.
  8. Reboot your system.

Enable Reserved Storage on Windows 10

To enable Reserved Storage, we need to change the “ShippedWithReserves” value to “1.” Here is how.

  1. Open the Registry Editor.
  2. Go to the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ReserveManager” folder.
  3. Double-click on the “ShippedWithReserves” value.
  4. Type “1” in the Value Data field.
  5. Click “Ok.”
  6. Close the Registry Editor.
  7. Reboot the computer.

After restarting, the Reserved Storage feature is enabled and ready to go.

If you are looking for other ways to free up space on Windows 10, follow the tips below.

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