How to Shrink Partition in Windows 10

Shrinking a partition is needed when you want to create a new volume or extend another volume on the same disk. In most of the cases, you can shrink partition directly without worrying about data loss. However, if you want to shrink a RAW partition, you may destroy the files in it. Thus, if the partition you want to shrink has a RAW file system, you are recommended to perform RAW data recovery, and then carry out one of the methods below to shrink your Windows 10 partition.

3 Ways to Shrink Partition in Windows 10

Generally, users use three ways to shrink Windows 10 partition, Disk Management, third-party software, or DiskPart.

Method 1. Shrink Partition with Windows 10 Built-In Disk Management

Windows 10 built-in Disk Management enables you to view and manage your disk drives. It has the ability to shrink volume and extend volume.

Step 1. Right-click on "This PC", choose "Manage", and choose "Disk Management" in the pop-up window.

Step 2. Then you need to right-click on the partition which you want to shrink, and choose "Shrink Volume..."

Step 3. In the dialog box, set the amount of space to shink and click "Shrink".

Step 4. After shrinking the partition, you will create more free space on your disk. Then you can create a new volume or extend a partition as you like.

Method 2. Shrink Windows 10 Partition with EaseUS Partition Master

If you prefer to shrink a partition in Windows 10 by dragging and dropping or Disk Management doesn't support the shrink operation on your current partition, you can use EaseUS partition tool - EaseUS Partition Master to resize your partition. Whether you want to shrink or extend a partition, you can directly drag the volume to the size you want instead of entering the size in number.

 

Step 1: Install and launch EaseUS Partition Master

On the main window, right-click on the partition that you want to shrink and select "Resize/Move".

Step 2: Adjust partition size

To shrink a partition, use your mouse to drag one of its ends to shrink partition space.

You can also adjust the partition size box to shrink the target partition.
Click "OK" to continue.

Step 3: Shrink partition

Click the "Execute Operation" button and "Apply" to keep all changes.

EaseUS Partition Master is the professional partition management software to extend or shrink Windows 10 partition without data loss. It also has other disk management features like merging partitions, formatting partitions, converting MBR to GPT disk and more.

Method 3. Shrink Partition in Windows 10 Using DiskPart

Although using DiskPart to shrink Windows 10 volume is practical, it's a relatively complex method among the three. In case you need it, we also detail the steps here as an alternative way.

Step 1. Click the "Start" button and type cmd.

Step 2. Right-click "Command Prompt" and choose "Run as administrator". In the prompt, click "Yes" to continue.

Step 3. To shrink a Windows 10 partition, enter the following commands in order:

The Bottom Line

As you can see from the details above, using Disk Management and EaseUS partition tool is much easier than using DiskPart. However, there are limits on the partition you can resize while using Disk Management. Thus, EaseUS Partition Master can meet the needs of more users. Besides, after the shrink operation, most of you will create a new partition or extend an existing partition. If you want to extend a partition with non-adjacent space, using a third-party tool is your only choice because Disk Management don't support such operations.