I found a ‘DISM’ command that reclaims Windows 11 system storage – but you have to use it wisely

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Have you ever noticed that your PC’s storage never seems to increase? One reason for this is that Windows reserves a small portion of your storage for system files. A feature called Reserved Storage quietly sets aside 5GB to 10GB on your SSD for update files, cache, and temporary files.

This isn’t as nefarious as it sounds – there is a logic behind allocating space to streamline updates – but you may want to get that space back, especially if you have a small SSD and are short on space.

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Most users with 512GB or more of storage won’t need to mess with these settings, but if you really want to max out your SSD, Windows lets you disable reserved storage.

Start here first

If you’re struggling for space on your local drive, there are several other options I recommend exploring first – many of which may yield even better results. First, consider clearing the cache in Windows 11, which is a safe way to free up some space.

Second, Windows PC Manager is a free cleanup tool that helps identify clutter on your machine. Since it’s designed by Microsoft, it should theoretically be able to identify some files that third-party programs can’t, like old Windows log files and installation clutter.

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We’ve written a detailed guide on how to get PC Manager, but the great thing is that you can download it from either of its sources. product page Or Microsoft Store. When you run it for the first time, run a health check, then let it clean up disk space.

How to turn off reserved storage

If you’ve already gone through these steps and want to get every spare byte of your SSD back from Windows, here’s how you can turn off reserved storage. First, go to Settings in Windows, and go to System > Storage. Once on this tab, click the “Show more categories” tab, then navigate to System and Reserved.

If you scroll down, you’ll see “Reserved Storage,” which includes how much your system has set aside for this purpose. Again, this will be most effective for systems with very limited storage. If you have 512 GB or more and only have 10 GB or less reserved for Windows, this is ultimately negligible and will likely have little or no impact on your system.

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To put it in perspective, 10GB isn’t even 2% of 512GB.

To proceed to turn off reserved storage, you will need to enter a command line. Click Start > Command Prompt, right-click and select “Run as administrator.” Then type or paste the following command:

DISM.exe /online /set-reservedstoragestate /state:disabled

Restart your computer, and navigate back to the screen you just saw in Settings > System > Storage > System and Reserved. Click “Show more categories”, and notice that where you previously saw the amount for reserved storage, it should be empty.

When to turn back reserved storage

You may want to re-enable this feature when it’s time to update your PC. This is quite easy to do, just type the same command line, but change the last part to enabled.

DISM.exe /online /set-reservedstoragestate /state:enabled

I don’t blame you if you want more control over how Windows uses storage on your PC, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re dealing with extremely limited space. I wouldn’t consider less than 512GB of storage for a main driver PC unless you’re on a secondary device or a Chromebook.

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The best solution is to add more storage, whether it’s upgrading the onboard SSD or using external storage. We’ve tested several over the past year, including portable options like the 1TB SanDisk ExtremeFit, which is probably smaller than your mouse dongle, or this massive 4TB Samsung T9 Portable SSD, which has enough space to last indefinitely for some users.

However, whatever you do, stay away from cheap SSDs that sound too good to be true, as we found several devices that were either unreliable or straight up DOA.