Warning added in Disk Cleanup for Downloads folder

Dec 20, 2018 08:28 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has made a subtle change in Windows 10 build 18305, adding a warning in the Disk Cleanup screen for the Downloads folder.

Basically, starting with the upcoming Windows 10 19H1 OS feature update, users would be warned that running Disk Cleanup on the Downloads folder would remove data they would otherwise want to keep.

“Warning: These are files in your personal Downloads folder. Select this is you’d like to delete everything. This does not respect your Storage Sense configuration,” the message displayed in the Disk Cleanup screen reads.

As Albacore notes, the message is displayed with Microsoft’s already-famous apostrophe bug, but expect this to be resolved by the time Windows 10 19H1 is ready for the public release.

Cleaning files in the Downloads folder

A change that Microsoft has included in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update was received with criticism by many in the Windows user community, as the Downloads folder was added to Disk Cleanup and Storage Sense for file cleaning.

This means that some of the users who launched Disk Cleanup and checked all options without first making sure that they are selecting the right data to be removed ended up without files in the Downloads folder, as they weren’t aware Microsoft added this location to the cleaning list.

By the looks of things, Microsoft is trying to prevent accidental data loss in Windows 10 19H1, though it goes without saying that many users may not even notice the warning in the updated UI.

Windows 10 19H1 is projected to be finalized in March next year, while the public rollout to users across the world should kick off in April. Several other preview builds would land in early 2019, so there’s a chance that the experience with disk cleaning could be further refined before the launch.