What the heck is "Other People" - using 105 GB storage on my C: drive

Hello Ron,

Acknowledging all the details that you have provided.

Other people section will be created once a new user profile is logged into your PC. All their files, programs, and apps installed on their profile will be there as well.  You can view Other People section by following this:

Press Windows + I > System > Storage > This PC (C:) > Scroll down to the bottom you'll see Other People.

If you can't view or manage files from there, you can access this from File Explorer. To do this:

Press Windows + E > This PC > Local Disk (C:) > Users > From here, all users who previously logged on to your device will show.

If you are the Administrator of the device you're using you'd be able to delete the user accounts and its file to lessen up the usage on your disk. To do this:

1. Open Settings, and click/tap on the Accounts icon.
2. Click/tap on Family & other people on the left side, click/tap on an account you want to delete on the right side, and click/tap on Remove.
3. Click/tap onDelete account and data to confirm.
4. When finished, you can close Settings if you like.

Once done, the user profile/s would be deleted along with its files. You can check again the Other People section and see if it's still eating large space on your drive.

You may check this support article on how to:

Free up drive space in Windows 10

Do get back to us should you need anything else.

Best,

Anne

Anne-

Thanks for the response.

 You can view Other People section by following this:

Press Windows + I > System > Storage > This PC (C:) > Scroll down to the bottom you'll see Other People.

OK, I have been there, done that -- and there is nothing there, save the 4 lines posted in my note above.  No actionable information and nothing to click on, nothing to do there.

If you can't view or manage files from there, you can access this from File Explorer. To do this:

Press Windows + E > This PC > Local Disk (C:) > Users > From here, all users who previously logged on to your device will show.

Anne - I have done this also, but I don't know what to look for -- however, based on you comment, under Users I see:

xxx              (my user ID)

xxxadmin   (my admin user ID)

Default

Default.migrated

Public

vivek

The 2 listed first are obviously my user IDs -- whereas, are you saying the 4 are also "user ID's."?

               And regarding the following:

If you are the Administrator of the device you're using you'd be able to delete the user accounts and its file to lessen up the usage on your disk. To do this:

1. Open Settings, and click/tap on the Accounts icon.
2. Click/tap on Family & other people on the left side

               I don't have a "Family & other people" link showing on my screen (unless it only appears if you are an administrator).

So I am so totally confused as to what this Other people is.

ron in round rock

- If you have not run Windows Disk Cleanup recently doing so may be a good starting point.

If you know you won't be needing to roll back to a previous Win10 version, click on the Clean Up System Files option as well.

You can't be rid of Default or Public. Windows will only replace them if you delete them.

Is the 105GB 'extra' in the Default Migrated and vivek folders ?

If so, these two folders may be the folders/files that are being referenced as 'moved from' and Other People ( leftovers from a Win10 upgrade?)?

- So, assuming there are no other account names to be managed/deleted in Setting > Accounts, other than your two User accounts,

and you are logged on with your admin account, you should be able to just  delete  Default Migrated  (Making sure there are no files you

want in that folder before deleting).

So who's vivek ...  Delete ?

Once deleted (maybe reboot after), the value in 'Other People' should be set at 0 . Assuming these two folders actually have data in them.

.

BossDweeb-

First of all, I don't know where that "moved from" came from - it was not in my original post -- and I have edited it out.

I don't know what is going on -- I don't know what you are supposed to be seeing under Other People, but here are the sizes of the various folders under "Users", via Properties:

Users                      -    170  GB

  xxx                        -   170  GB            (my user ID)

  xxxadmin              -     0    Bytes       (my admin user ID)

  Default                 -   2.62 GB

  Default.migrated  -    0    Bytes

  Public                   -   81.1 KB

  vivek                    -     0    Bytes

"vivek" is the 1st 5 characters of my email address (i.e. viveka@. . . ."

The "xxx" is just my system User Account ID, which I decided was not necessary to expose the real name.

I notice there are some other posts complaining about the size of Other People and asking what it is.

So what is normally supposed to be found under "Other People" in/under Storage.  Is it supposed to by just the Account ID's.  "Other people" seems to be a strange label for what is supposed to be your User ID Account information -- which I assume is the unique account structure -- for when you sign on with different User ID's.  At least the contents of the "xxx" User account ID looks like the structure of the information when I bring up the system every day, but I don't see why there is nothing under the admin User ID.

I suppose that it "may" be possible that I have never signed on and used the admin ID (can't really believe that is possible, but maybe) -- but I always sign on with the non-admin ID (which I think is recommended to help thwart hackers, viruses, etc.).

But none of this lines up with "what is supposed to be under Other people" (OK, I guess the User ID are supposed to be there if that is what "Other people" is supposed to mean, but where did the 105 GB size come from.

Still confused.

ron in round rock

No more ideas here. This is the first I'd heard of Others. I've only ever used an admin account, so I only have User folders for

that account, Default and Public. I use Thunderbird and Hotmail for email, so I've never seen a folder in Users for email either.

*Off to search*.... There you go... Here's another possible culprit.

 -  It looks like you may not have disabled the Windows update setting that stores downloaded update data to facilitate

updating another machine in your network without having to download it again.

I have two machines, but I didn't like the idea, so it's been disabled forever.

If you don't want to use this function go to...

Settings > Updates and Security > Advanced Options > Choose how updates are installed > Delivery Optimisation .

Shut down  Allow downloads from other PC's

- I don't know disabling the option will automatically clear what's been cached already.

If not, it may after a reboot or Disk Cleanup ?

BossDweeb-

Thanks for the tip -- yeah, I don't like that either - I don't like anything that I really don't understand -- like the "Other people" I am complaining about.

I did disable that Delivery feature, whatever it does -- but doubt that it is the source of my problem.

I am going to get rid of a couple of folders in the Users that I KNOW can't be users, and they are 0 bytes in size anyway.

AND GUESS WHAT -- I just checked again and the xxxadmin ID that I said had 0 bytes (a few posts back) now shows 105 GB -- so I "guess" that is the 105 GB I am complaining about.  Makes me wonder if I screwed up the Properties checks the other day.

So I guess the 105 GB is the xxxadmin structure -- is that a reasonable size -- seems large to me -- I guess I couldsign on under the admin ID and see what shows up there -- would that work?

I am completely lost.

ron in round rock

"I guess I couldsign on under the admin ID and see what shows up there -- would that work?"

Yes, by all means, and do not pass go. Explore. Always.

Not sure what you are asking would work other than verify what the 105GB within the xxxadmin account folder is comprised of.

- I  suppose your xxxadmin account could grow almost as large as your restricted User account if you change between a Restricted and Admin

accounts a lot.

Any duplicates of files in your xxx account found in the xxxadmin account can be deleted, but you would want to be able to access

your restricted User folder from the xxxadmin account so you can open any files you may need while logged on as Admin.

I do a lot of stuffing around with things that require admin privileges on my machine, and it's a bit tedious having to deal with

permissions all the time when using a restricted User account. I've just use one Admin account (since 2004), so I don't know the details

of if running two accounts for one User affects file duplication, but if both of your User accounts use the same name, and password

it's possible your restricted User account files are being backed-up to xxxadmin by Windows

( I don't use Windows or other automated backup either, so... guessing) ?

"I did disable that Delivery feature, whatever it does"

Put crudely... it turns your machine into a torrent server for MS Updates.

.

Hi Ron2inrr,

Looks like you have 105GB of content on the admin account. In order to check what is occupying that space, login to the machine with the admin account. Go to Storage Settings and check what is occupying this space. Is it user content or Others taking up majority of the space?

Please let us know your investigation.

Thanks! Hope this helps.

BossDweeb, RucyikaGupta-

OK, I will do that -- sign on to the admin ID and see what is there.

To be honest with you, I am on vacation using my wife's laptop, which we are thinking about replacing -- and I wanted to get an idea of what size of a HD I need to be looking at, which is my interest in all of the folder sizes I am seeing when I look at the Storage under Windows 10.

And I am getting rather busy wrapping up my vacation -- so I won't be able to spend a lot, if any, more time on this at this time-- and will have to put my investigation off until I return home sometime next week.

But I will look into it further because I want to know what all of this storage is allocated to under the admin ID.  I/We never sign on under the admin ID.  I say never, but I think I did sign on a couple of years ago when  I was setting up this laptop (moving files from her old laptop to this laptop), but that is the only time I have ever used the admin ID that I can remember and I am quite sure my wife has never used the  admin ID.  We of course give Windows 10 the admin password when it need to, to make changes requiring admin authority, but never sign on with it -- so it will be an interesting and educational investigation for me -- to see why the ID is taking up 105 MB of storage.

So again, it will be a couple of weeks before I can get back to this, but I do appreciate the help and advice you have offered.  And if you want to throw some more comments my way -- I KNOW I want a SS Drive in the new laptop (have one in my desktop) and am trying to decide if I want to go with a system that has, FOR INSTANCE, a 256 GB SS Drive with a 1 TB HD, or go with the more expensive option and just blow a bunch of money on a 1 TB SS Drive.

ron in round rock