Hiberfil.sys takes 20 GB of my drive
Hiberfil is the hibernate file: as big as your RAM. On a laptop with 32 GB RAM that is 32 GB gone, even if you never hibernate.
Try this first
- 1Ask yourself: do you actually use hibernate (not sleep)? Do you shut down or just close the lid? Closing the lid usually triggers Sleep, not Hibernate.
- 2Not needed? Open PowerShell as Administrator and run: powercfg /hibernate off. The file vanishes right away.
- 3Want it back? powercfg /hibernate on in the same admin PowerShell.
- 4On a desktop hibernate is rarely worthwhile; it can almost always be off.
When to bring us in
Not needed.
See also
- My laptop is suddenly slowThree main suspects: a runaway background process, near-full disk, or a Windows update in progress.
- One specific application is slow for everyoneIf an app is slow for one person: local. For everyone at once: server side or vendor side.
- Opening files from the file server takes minutesOften the server itself is fine and the issue is network routing or stalling DNS resolution.
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