5 Fixes for Not Enough Space for Windows 10 Update

If you receive an error message while Windows 10 update that tells "Windows needs more space", it means that your computer doesn’t have enough space on C drive to install the latest Windows 10. 

Usually, to upgrade to Windows 10, or installing a new build of Windows 10, you'd better prepare 16GB free space on drive C for 32 bit OS and 20GB for 64 bit OS. Besides, since Microsoft enables users to rollback Windows 10 to its previous version, there is a folder called Windows.old created in drive C, which takes several GB of space. So, more space is required for Windows 10 update.

Then, how to fix not enough space for Windows 10 update? When your computer fails to install the latest Windows 10 update, refer to the following solutions to troubleshoot.

5 Useful Ways to Fix Not Enough Space for Windows 10 Update

Not enough space for Windows 10 update problem is mostly caused by low disk space on C drive. To fix this issue, we've gathered a few helpful methods from the easier to the more advanced. You may apply any one of them to resolve the issue.

Solution 1. Delete Useless Files and Programs

When the system doesn't have enough space for Windows 10 update, most users will free up C drive by removing files and applications. In order not to delete some important data accidentally, you’d better back up C drive to external hard drive in advance. After that, you can clear out all the files you don't want to make more free space for Windows update.

Solution 2. Clean up C Drive to Free up Space

To free up C drive to fix Windows update has not enough disk space, you can use Disk Cleanup to delete some files in the Downloads folder, Recycle Bin, and Temporary files.

Click the "Start" button, type Disk Cleanup in the Search box, run this program as administrator. Choose C drive to clean, select files to delete, and click "OK".

Solution 3. Extend C Drive

If your computer is still running out of space for installing the latest Windows 10 update through the two ways above, you can use EaseUS Partition Master to help you expand C drive without formatting.

This partition software helps you create, resize, clone, move, merge, and format partitions without effort. Furthermore, it also allows converting disk/partitions without data loss, such as converting MBT to GPT.

 

Step 1: Launch EaseUS Partition Master

Step 2: Increase C drive space

1. Shrink partition to free up unallocated space:

Right-click on a partition next to the C: drive and select "Resize/Move".
Drag either end of the partition to shrink and leave unallocated space behind the system C: drive and click "OK".

2. Right-click on C: drive and select "Resize/Move".

3. Drag the system partition end into unallocated space so to add space to C: drive.

Step 3: Keep all changes to extend C: drive

Click the "Execute Operation" and click "Apply" to keep all changes so to extend the system C: drive.

Solution 4. Windows 10 Update Using External Drive

Step 1. Go to "Settings", click on "Update & security" > "Windows Update" > "Check for Updates".

Step 2. Windows will pop up a window and tell you that "Windows needs more space".

Step 3. You can click the "Free up space" option first to see if this can help.

You can see what's taking the most space on C drive and delete not essential files.

After this, return and select the Fresh icon next to the Free up space button, a green checkmark will show up if the C drive has enough space. You can click "Continue" to install the update.

Step 4. If this doesn't help, connected an empty external hard drive to your PC and repeat Step 1, click "I want to use external storage instead" when the ‘Windows needs more space’ window pops up. 

Note: Please format the external storage such as external hard drive first in case Windows update fail again. 

Step 5. If the external hard drive fails to show up, press the Fresh icon, and a green checkmark will appear next to the storage drive icon.

Step 6. Click "Continue" to install the latest Windows 10 update on your PC. And follow the onscreen instructions to complete the Windows 10 update process.

Solution 5. Migrate OS to a Bigger HDD/SSD

If you don't have an external hard drive to help with Windows upgrades or if your internal hard drive doesn't have any room to expand the C drive, you might consider upgrading your system disk to an SSD or even a larger HDD to fix the problem of not enough space for Windows 10 update.

EaseUS partition manager provides you with the "Migrate OS" and "Clone" features to transfer Window OS to SSD/HDD without reinstalling. 

Note: Migrating OS to SSD or HDD will delete and remove all existing partitions and data on your target disk. If you have saved important files there, you need to back up the data to an external hard drive in advance.

 

Step 1: Run EaseUS Partition Master, select "Migrate OS" from the top menu.

Step 2: Select the SSD or HDD as the destination disk and click "Next".

Warning: the data and partitions on the target disk will be deleted. Make sure that you've backed up important data at first. If not, do it now.

Then click "Migrate" and "OK" to continue.

Step 3: Preview the layout of your target disk. You can also click the disk layout options to customize the layout of your target disk as you want. Then click "OK" to continue.

Step 4: A pending operation of migrating OS to SSD or HDD will be added. Click the "Execute Operation" button and click "Apply" to start migrating your OS to a new disk.

Other Related Issues for Windows 10 Update

If you fail to install the Windows 10 update with a warning message "This PC can't run Windows 10...we couldn't update the system reserved partition.", mostly, it is caused by low system reserved partition space. To troubleshoot, go to read this tutorial: How to fix low system reserved partition on MBR/GPT disk in Windows 7/8/10.