One of the things you could use is "Disk Cleanup". I've no idea about Windows "crate", but in 7 it is in Computer, right click on the disk drive you wish to tidy up, then Properties, and it is on the General tab. You can also go to the Tools tab and use Defrag. This tidy's up the files on your drive which may not all be in a contiguous area of the drive, and help to speed things up when opening files, especially large ones. I can't imagine these features have been removed in this version of Windows. (Which even Bill Gates hates!) George. From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of MARK BISHOP Sent: 19 August 2014 20:36 To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [access-uk] cleaning up unwanted files on my laptop Hi all I have used something on my laptop before to clean up unwanted or deleted files. I cannot remember what is called and therefore cannot find it. Any help will be welcome. I am using windows 8. thanks Mark Bishop