Is it normal for Chrome to take up 734 mb of disk space?

[bbhaag]

So I was using Windirstat to poke around on my new M.2 drive and noticed that Chrome seems to be taking up an exorbitant amount of disk space. I use Ccleaner and the built in Windows10 disk cleanup utility but it still seems to be rather large. I've attached an image to show what I mean and this cap was taken after I ran both utilities and restarted my pc.
Anything I can do to get this down to a more reasonable size? It just seems crazy that a web browser should take up so much space.

 

[Elixer]

My Chrome takes up ~352MB.
Maybe it is caching, or older version of Chrome still around?

 

[Dahak]

Well the folder under the appdata\local is where the cache is so I can see that can grow, mines about 2gb for reference
Under program files, mine is about 300mb as well

 

[VirtualLarry]

Does this seriously bother people? Get a bigger SSD if it bugs you. Really. It's not like a leak, I don't think.
Clear your browser cache, and un-install extensions, and prior versions. Heck, un-install the whole dang thing, delete the directories, and re-install fresh, and see what it adds up to then.

 

[bbhaag]

This is a fresh install of both Windows10 and Chrome on my new m.2 drive and yes it bothers me. It appears I have an older version of Chrome hanging around. I will search for ideas on a safe way to delete it.

 

[XavierMace]

I'm trying to figure out how you've come to the conclusion that 500Mb is unreasonable. Mine is 350Mb. Why not complain about the 700Mb of FONTS you have.

 

[deustroop]

Pretty sure you can manually set the cache size you want, like FF does, only its more complicated.

 

[Puffnstuff]

On my desktop it takes up 354mb with 99 files in 14 folders.

 

[TheRyuu]

It's completely normal. Keep in mind that your local data in your user folder contains cache data as well. Chrome has dynamic limits for cache size to prevent things from getting too out of hand.

 

[bbhaag]

I'm trying to figure out how you've come to the conclusion that 500Mb is unreasonable. Mine is 350Mb. Why not complain about the 700Mb of FONTS you have.

Like I mentioned this is a fresh install of Windows10. I will get to the FONTS in time. I'm not sure why a fresh install of Windows10 needs that many FONTS but I will look into it. I'm not sure why FONTS is in all caps though. Is there a reason you couldn't just say fonts?

Anyway, thanks for all the feedback and suggestions guys. I'll look into limiting my cache size and fwiw I did figure how to safely delete the extra install of Chrome.

 

[VirtualLarry]

TBH, I think that if you're "budgeting storage", in terms of micro-managing individual directories, you're probably wasting your time and doing it wrong, and you should have purchased a larger storage device in the beginning. (Although, we all know how "storage creep" goes.)

If you've got 2-5GB of temp .mov or .mpg files in a browser plugin temp directory from watching streaming videos or divx plugin stuff, that is lying around, then by all means, clean that junk up.

But micro-managing the default set of Windows Fonts? I've got way better things to do with my time, including NEFing on AT. You can only have so much "computer OCD" until you go insane, with what MS keeps throwing at you.

 

[bbhaag]

When it comes to m.2 nvme drives the choices are slim so I purchased the largest drive I could afford. I will manage it and the directories I put on it how I see fit.
You are not one to tell me about "computer OCD" VirtualLarry. You have your own version of it on the hardware side and it is not up to you or anyone else to dictate to me how I should manage my computer. If I feel it necessary to delete files or keep files I will do so.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm just saying, I've seen it before, and it doesn't end well, generally. Windows' likes the way it's laid out, mess with it too much, and it starts getting pretty funky.

I hear you though, on the pricey M.2 PCI-E SSDs. I've got a few of them in service, all but one are 120/128GB-class, primarily because they were the biggest I could afford at the time. (The other one, a 256GB Intel 600p, I got a few months back, before SSDs started trending upwards in price. Now those are way too pricey for me to afford.)

But, trying to trim down Windows' itself? As opposed to managing your own user file storage? I just feel that way lies never-ending "Computer OCD" madness, where every month you have a new task, due to Windows Updates and whatnot.

Edit: Don't forget to clean out the duplicates in the WinSxS directory... just sayin'. /s

Edit: Wait, this is the rig with the 480GB M.2 PCI-E BPX drive?
https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...-the-trigger-on-a-mydigitalssd-480gb.2521573/

I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but... I guess, if I had 480GB to "spend" on an OS and apps installation, unless you a-priori knew that space was going to be tight (migrating from a full 500GB HDD), I don't think that personally I would worry about how many Windows Fonts were installed. Maybe you enjoy that sort of challenge, or the minutia of it all.

I used to be like that, then I realized how much time and "brain space" I was wasting, worrying about white-listing cookies and web scripts from every different site I visited, slowing down my browsing having to make decisions about those things, and the additional processing load of dealing with huge exception lists.

Now I just install UBlock Origin, and Privacy Badger, enable tracking protection in Firefox, and let 'er rip.

Likewise. I have a NAS with gobs of HDD space, most of my client OS machines I install 120/128GB-class SSDs, SATA or M.2 PCI-E as appropriate or what I can afford, and then I just back up my stuff to my NAS, and delete it off of my client drives, saving room. I hardly care how big the \WINDOWS directory is, as long as it's less than half the SSD size. (Normally takes 18GB?)

This works out well for me, because I have multiple machines, and indeed, I swap them out regularly, or at least some of them. If I were hoarding my files on one of my client machines, it would make swapping or re-formatting that much more difficult.

IMHO, a NAS is a worth-while investment, if you are serious about computing. You can also use Macrium Reflect Free Edition to back up to "Windows Network Shares". Just create a backup directory on your NAS.

 

[mxnerd]

Mine is 350MB.

720MB in today's software world, that's nothing.

I installed just a portion of (not all) Visual Studio Community Edition 2017, it took almost 8GB.

 

[ninaholic37]

I think in 2013, ChromeOS took up 6.4GB, not sure what it's up to now

https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/1rsqzk/how_much_space_does_chromeos_take_up/