AppData: what is this folder?

In the Windows operating system, many mysteries are hidden. Some of them are more interesting than others. If you take up their unraveling, you can get a huge benefit and an invaluable experience.

Need to know

As an example, you can take the directory AppData. What is this folder? For the first time it appeared in the operating system Vista. Few people suspect of its existence. And the reason lies in the fact that this directory is hidden from the user's eyes, because it contains extremely important system files. But understanding the nature of this folder can help significantly save such precious hard disk space and, possibly, improve the overall system performance.

Catalog description

So, the directory AppData: what is it? The full name of the folder is Application Data. This is a hidden system directory, which is a subdirectory of the Users folder, which stores personal files of all users registered on this computer.

The AppData contains all the information that is generated by the software installed on the computer. Such data is invisible to the user, since all these files, in theory, should not be of any interest to him.

Possible problem

But the reality, however, often differs from what was originally intended by Microsoft. If the operating system is actively and continuously used without reinstallation, the size of the AppData folder will grow rapidly. Windows 7 will soon inform the user that there is too little free space left in the system partition. Especially this problem concerns SSD-devices of a relatively small volume, since on them each megabyte is worth its weight in gold.

Make the folder visible

It is necessary to consider in detail the structure of the AppData folder. What will it give? It becomes clear which of the files that are stored in the directory are very important, and which - not very.

As already mentioned, by default this folder is hidden, so in order to get to it, you need to change some parameters of the operating system. To do this, open the Control Panel, and then go to the "Appearance and Personalization" section. The next thing to do is open the dialog box with the folder options and in the "View" tab, find the option in the list of options that is responsible for hidden files, disks and folders. It just remains to change the settings that are set by default, to the opposite - "Show hidden files".

Now you will not only see the AppData folder. What does it mean? The user will be able to access other system directories and files, as well as those files that may have been hidden by other users.

Directory structure

The directory in question is located on the system drive in the Users folder, but you need to pay attention to the fact that each user registered in the system has its own directory AppData. What does it mean? Windows 7 and other versions of the operating system mean that each user will install their programs, so there is no point in dumping everything in one directory. That's why you need to find in the folder a directory with your own user name. By default, the folder has three subfolders: Local, LocalLow, Roaming. Each of them stores data of different profiles.

The folder Local contains files that are created during the operation of the installed software. All this information is specific only for a specific computer user, and it can not be moved to another PC. Here you can find the folder with the name Microsoft, which contains the history of all the activity of the operating system. Also there is a folder, the full path to which looks like this: AppData / Local / Temp. What is this directory? It contains temporary files that are created during the operation of different applications. All its contents can be deleted without worrying, as often all the entries are completely unnecessary and just take up space on the hard disk.

The Roaming folder stores certain user files that you can transfer from one computer to another.

The purpose of the LocalLow folder is to store buffer data that is generated by programs from Adobe, the IE browser, and Java.

Clearing unnecessary files

Quite often in all these catalogs a large number of software wastes accumulate, which over time grow into indecently large sizes. In order to clean the computer of all this file debris, it is not necessary to climb into the depths of the AppData folder. Up to the directory with temporary files that are to be deleted can be accessed in an easier way.

If you write shell: history in the address bar of the operating system's explorer, a folder with the history of the IE browser will open. The shell command: cache opens a directory with browser cache files. The shell command: cookies displays all saved files with login information. Finally, the shell command: sendto will help remove or add shortcuts to the Send menu.

If there is a desire for more detailed study of the contents of the AppData folder, then a small but very powerful utility called WinDirStat that can quickly scan a hard disk can be of great use, and then visually distribute all the files recorded on it in an extremely attractive graphical form. The user will be very easy to navigate in it, even if one or a whole group of files of the same type take up too much space.

Well, the simplest and best way to clean up both the AppData folder and all other unnecessary contents of hard disks is to periodically scan the system with the wonderful CCleaner program, which, thanks to its algorithms, removes all the extra garbage from the computer.

Summarize. AppData: what is it? Windows 7 and other operating systems of this family store in this directory files that are created by the software. With the help of special software you can clean the folder, but you can not delete all its contents.