How to Make Windows 10 Manage Backup Disk Space for You

The problem: backup disk is full

Backup plays an increasingly important role in our daily life to prevent data loss somehow. People perform different backups in different situations, such as system backup, file backup and so on.

If you run a long-term backup, you may encounter a problem: the backup disk is full. The problem will lead to the backup failure eventually. Here is one user’s experience:

“I have a 1TB USB drive that I use as a backup drive for my work PC. The drive will eventually run out of space and I need to go in and remove older backups using the manage space/view backups dialogs and delete backups from past periods.

Is there any way to tell Windows Backup to manage the backup space in a smarter way and keep as many backups as it can but without going past the drive size and issuing errors?”

Just like this user, plenty of users want to figure out how to delete Windows image backups in Windows 10 automatically, thus saving efforts to delete them manually. How to achieve this goal?

How to make Windows 10 backup delete old backups automatically

To have Windows 10 delete old backups automatically, there are two efficient ways I’m going to share with you:

• Method 1: manage Windows backup disk space via a powerful utility

• Method 2: manage backups in Windows 10 with the built-in tool

Method 1: manage Windows backup disk space via a powerful utility

With the specialized backup software AOMEI Backupper Professional, you can manage Windows 10 backups easily.

✦ It supports all Windows PC operating systems like Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP.
✦ There are five types of backup available: System/Disk/Partition/File/Cloud Backup, which can meet all your needs.
✦ It offers the Schedule Backup feature that enables you to set the backup task to run periodically. You can choose from five schedule modes: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Event triggers, and USB plug in.
✦ It owns the Backup Scheme feature which allows you to set the old backups to be deleted automatically when your backup disk is full.

Follow the steps below to create a scheduled system backup and delete backup files in Windows 10 automatically with AOMEI Backupper:

Step 1. Download, install and open AOMEI Backupper. Connect the external storage device to your computer if you want to backup Windows 10 to an external drive.

Step 2. Click on “Backup” and select “System Backup”.

Step 3. The required system partition(s) is (are) selected by default. Choose the destination path to store the backup files. 

Step 4. Click “Schedule Backup” in the bottom, and then set the frequency of the system backup to run.

Step 5. Click “Backup Scheme”, switch on “Enable Automatic Backup Cleanup” and choose one cleanup method to delete old backups automatically.

Tips: For the difference between the cleanup methods, please refer to backup scheme.

Step 6. Confirm the operation and click “Start Backup”. Then, choose “Add the schedule and start backup now” to run the first backup immediately or “Only add the schedule” to run it later.

>> Options: you can enable encryption for backups, choose the compression level for the backup image file and select intelligent sector backup or sector-by-sector backup.

If your Windows computer won't boot, you need to boot your computer with the bootable disk you created earlier. If you don't have a bootable USB/CD/DVD etc, you can create a recovery environment on your computer in advance. It will help you to boot your computer successfully and enter the software interface.

Method 2: manage backups in Windows 10 with the built-in tool

Some people would like to learn how to delete backup files in Windows 10/8/7 automatically with Windows built-in tool. Then, follow the instructions below:

1. Click Start and select Settings > Update & Security > Backup > Go to Backup and Restore (Windows 7) to open the backup tool inherited from Windows 7. Click on Manage Space.

2. In the Manage Windows Backup disk space screen, click on Change settings under the System image section.

3. In the next screen, select Keep only the latest system image and minimize space used by backup to let Windows delete old backups automatically and save only one system image. Click OK to save the change.

Note: You can only delete system backup images with this method. If you have created backups in Windows 10 via File History, please turn to File History Cleanup.

Verdict

You can make Windows 10 manage backups automatically with the two methods mentioned above. Nevertheless, AOMEI Backupper provides you with more flexible backup and recovery options. You can even perform dissimilar hardware restore with AOMEI Backupper. 

What’s more, it offers you the clone feature. You can use it as Samsung 970 EVO cloning software. Give it a try and you will be surprised by all the wonderful features it owns!