How to Clear Cache on PC, Windows 11 and 10-Full Guide

I figured out how to clear cache on PC the night a game I had played a hundred times suddenly turned into a stuttering mess. Nothing had changed, no new hardware, no settings touched, but every few seconds the frames would hitch like the game was gasping for air.

I spent an hour blaming my graphics card and almost convinced myself I needed an upgrade. Then a friend asked one question that fixed everything: did you update your GPU driver recently? I had. And that update had left my old shader cache mismatched and corrupted, quietly wrecking my frame pacing. Two minutes of clearing one cache folder and the stutter vanished.

That is the thing nobody tells you about cache. Most of the time it helps your PC, which is exactly why Windows builds it in the first place. But every so often it goes stale, bloats up, or gets corrupted, and then it causes the very slowdowns people blame on their hardware. In this guide I will show you how to clear cache on your PC across Windows 11 and Windows 10, covering every type from temporary files to RAM to the gamer-specific shader cache, all using safe built-in methods.

The steps to clear cache on a computer are the same whether you call it a PC, a laptop, or a desktop, so you are covered either way. I will also be honest with you about what clearing cache actually fixes and what it does not, because there is a lot of nonsense online promising it will make a slow PC fast. It will not, and I will explain why.

Cache is just data your PC saves so it can load things faster next time. When you open an app, browse a folder, or launch a game, Windows quietly keeps a copy of the bits it thinks you will need again. Next time, it pulls from that fast local copy instead of rebuilding everything from scratch. This is a good thing. A PC with a healthy cache feels snappier than one without.

So why clear it at all? Because cache is not perfect. It can grow large enough to eat noticeable disk space, especially Windows Update leftovers and shader files. It can get corrupted after a driver update or a crash, which leads to glitches, stutter, or apps that refuse to open. And it can hold onto outdated versions of files, so you keep seeing an old result when something has actually changed. Those are the three real reasons to clear it: free up space, fix corruption, and force a fresh start.

If you just want the fast version, here is how to clear the main cache on Windows 11 or 10 in under a minute:

1. Press Windows + I to open Settings.
2. Go to System, then Storage.
3. Click Temporary files.
4. Tick the boxes you want, such as Temporary files, Thumbnails, and Windows Update Cleanup.
5. Click Remove files to clear them.

That covers the everyday cache for most people. The rest of this guide walks through the other cache types, the gamer-specific shader cache, RAM, DNS, and the Store, plus exactly when each one is worth clearing.

This is what most people actually mean by clearing PC cache, and Windows 11 makes it painless. Open Settings by pressing Windows + I, go to System, then Storage, then click Temporary files. Windows scans and shows you a tidy list of cache categories with their sizes, like Temporary Internet Files, Delivery Optimization Files, Windows Update Cleanup, Thumbnails, and DirectX Shader Cache.

Tick the boxes for the categories you want gone. The safe ones for everybody are Temporary files, Thumbnails, Delivery Optimization Files, and Windows Update Cleanup, and that last one alone can free several gigabytes on an older system. Leave Downloads unchecked unless you genuinely want your downloads folder emptied, because people delete real files there by accident all the time. Once you have your boxes ticked, click Remove files. None of this touches your documents, photos, saved games, or installed apps. It only removes the disposable stuff Windows can rebuild on its own.

On Windows 10 the layout is almost identical, just under Settings, System, Storage, Temporary files.

There is also a manual shortcut that a lot of people search for. Press Windows + R to open the Run box, type %temp%, and press Enter. This opens the hidden temp folder directly in File Explorer. Press Ctrl + A to select everything, then Delete. Windows will skip any files currently in use, which is normal, so just click Skip if it asks. This does the same job as the Temporary files screen but gives you a direct look at what is in there, which some people prefer.

Disk Cleanup is the old reliable, and it is still excellent in 2026, especially when you want one window that shows every category of junk at once. Press Windows + S, type Disk Cleanup, and open it. Pick your Windows drive, usually C, and let it scan. You will get a checklist of file types you can safely remove, including temporary files, thumbnails, and the DirectX Shader Cache.

For a deeper clean, click the Clean up system files button inside Disk Cleanup. This re-scans and unlocks the big one, Windows Update Cleanup, which holds onto old update files that can pile up to several gigabytes over the months. Check the boxes you want, click OK, then confirm with Delete Files. This is the single fastest way to reclaim serious disk space on a drive that is mysteriously filling up, which is one of the most common complaints I see on the Windows forums.

This is the one most general cache guides barely mention, and it is the most useful one for gamers. The DirectX Shader Cache stores precompiled shader files, the little programs that tell your graphics card how to draw lighting, shadows, reflections, and textures. When this cache is healthy it reduces stutter and speeds up loading. When it goes stale or corrupted, usually after a graphics driver update or a Windows update, it does the opposite and causes hitching, visual glitches, long loads, or even crashes at launch.

You clear it the same way as temporary files. Go to Settings, System, Storage, Temporary files, tick the DirectX Shader Cache box, and hit Remove files. You can also clear it from Disk Cleanup. After clearing, expect your games to take a little longer to load the first time and maybe stutter briefly while the cache rebuilds, which is completely normal and settles within a few minutes of play.

A word of honesty here too. Clearing the shader cache is not an FPS booster. It only helps when the cache was the actual problem, meaning corrupted or mismatched shaders after an update. If your games run fine, leave it alone. And if you just updated your GPU driver and things went sideways, clearing this cache is often the fix, though sometimes the cleaner solution is a proper driver reinstall, which I cover in the guide on how to update GPU drivers.

This one gets misunderstood constantly, so let me set it straight before you touch it. Windows deliberately uses your spare RAM to cache recently used files and apps, which it parks in something called the standby list. Seeing a big chunk of your RAM marked as cached or standby is normal and healthy, not a problem. Windows hands that memory straight back to any app that needs it. So most of the time, you should not clear your RAM cache at all.

There is one real situation where it helps though. If you just closed a memory-heavy game, video editor, or virtual machine and your PC still feels sticky, or you are about to run a benchmark and want a clean baseline, emptying the standby list can restore responsiveness instantly. The safe, Microsoft-approved way to do it is with RAMMap, a free official tool from the Microsoft Sysinternals suite. Download it from the Microsoft Sysinternals page, run it as administrator, click the Empty menu at the top, and choose Empty Standby List. You will often see cached memory drop dramatically and free memory jump up within a second.

Two honest warnings. First, avoid third-party RAM cleaner or memory booster apps, because most of them just flush the standby cache constantly, forcing Windows to reload data from your slower drive and making things worse, not better. RAMMap from Microsoft is the only one I trust for this. Second, RAMMap does not add memory or delete anything permanently, it just tells Windows to release cached pages it was holding in reserve. If you constantly run out of RAM, the cache is not your problem, you need more memory or fewer background apps

Your PC keeps a cache of website addresses it has looked up, called the DNS cache, so pages load faster. When that cache holds outdated address info, websites can fail to load, load the wrong version, or act broken even when your internet is fine. Flushing it is a one-line fix.

Press Windows + S, type cmd, and open Command Prompt. Type the flush DNS command, which is ipconfig followed by a space and then /flushdns, and press Enter. You will get a short confirmation that the cache was cleared. That is the whole thing. This is a classic first step whenever a specific site refuses to load properly but the rest of your connection works fine, and it is totally safe.

If the Microsoft Store is acting up, refusing to download, or throwing errors, its cache is often the culprit. The fix is a tiny built-in command. Press Windows + R to open the Run box, type wsreset.exe, and press Enter. A blank Command Prompt window appears for a few seconds, then the Store reopens on its own once the cache is cleared. Nothing else is affected, your installed apps stay put.

A lot of people searching to clear PC cache actually want to clear their browser, so here is the fast version. In Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, press Ctrl + Shift + Delete to open the clear browsing data window. Pick a time range, tick Cached images and files, and optionally Cookies if you want to be logged out of sites, then confirm. This fixes pages that look broken, load an old version, or behave strangely, and it is the right tool when the problem is a single website rather than your whole PC. It will not free much disk space or affect performance, it just refreshes what your browser has stored.

If you would rather never think about this again, Windows 11 has a built-in feature called Storage Sense that clears temporary files and cache on a schedule for you. Go to Settings, System, Storage, and turn on Storage Sense. Click into it and you can set how often it runs and which temporary files it clears. It is the lazy person’s perfect solution, and it is the one I actually recommend to most people, because it quietly keeps your drive tidy without you lifting a finger. You can read Microsoft’s own rundown on the Storage Sense support page.

Not every cache is worth touching, so here is when each one actually helps.

Yes, every method in this guide is safe, because Windows only lets you remove cache it can rebuild. You are not deleting personal files, documents, photos, saved games, passwords, or installed programs. The worst that happens is your PC feels slightly slower for a few minutes while it regenerates the cache you just cleared, and some sites log you out if you also cleared cookies.

The one habit to avoid is clearing cache obsessively. Some people wipe everything daily thinking it keeps the PC fast, but that actually works against you, because you are constantly forcing Windows to rebuild caches that were doing their job. Clear temporary files when your drive fills up, clear the shader cache when a game misbehaves after an update, and otherwise let Windows manage its own memory. Cache exists to help you. Treat clearing it as targeted troubleshooting, not a daily ritual.

These are not cited threads, they are the recurring situations that come up again and again whenever people ask about cache, and they show when clearing it helps versus when the real problem is something else.

The first is the user whose C drive is critically low on space with no big files added. They think they are out of room, but the culprit is gigabytes of Windows Update leftovers and temp files hiding in system folders. The fix is Disk Cleanup with the Clean up system files option, which often reclaims several gigabytes in one pass. The data was never personal files, it was old cache that Windows forgot to throw out.

On the gaming side, the most repeated pattern is the player whose game suddenly stutters or glitches right after a graphics driver update. They assume the new driver is broken or their GPU is failing, when the real cause is a mismatched shader cache left over from the old driver. Clearing the DirectX Shader Cache and letting it rebuild fixes the frame pacing, no hardware involved. This is the exact problem that bit me in this article’s intro.

Then there is the RAM confusion that shows up constantly. Someone opens Task Manager, sees most of their memory marked as cached or in use, panics, and downloads a memory cleaner app to fix it. But that high cached number was Windows working correctly. The cleaner app makes the PC feel worse by flushing useful cache over and over, and the user ends up slower than before they started. The honest answer is almost always the same: that is not a problem, leave it alone, and uninstall the cleaner.

The last one ties everything together. A gamer clears every cache he can find chasing higher FPS, sees no improvement, and finally realizes his frame rate was never about cache at all. His aging processor simply could not keep up with his graphics card. No amount of cache clearing fixes a hardware imbalance, which is the single most important lesson in this whole guide.

Clearing your PC cache on Windows 11 or 10 comes down to a short, safe routine. Use Temporary files or Disk Cleanup for general cleanup and disk space, clear the DirectX Shader Cache when games act up after an update, empty standby RAM with RAMMap only when you genuinely need to, flush DNS for stubborn websites, and let Storage Sense handle the rest automatically. Every method here is safe and leaves your real files alone.

Just keep the honest truth in mind. Cache clearing is great housekeeping, but it is not a performance miracle. If you cleared everything and your games still stutter or your PC still feels slow, the answer is almost never junk files. It is usually heat or a mismatch between your parts, and those are worth checking before you blame anything else.