temporary download file How to delete the contents of the Temporary Internet Files folder. This article describes how to permanently remove the contents of the Temporary Internet Files folder from your computer. Watch a video about how to delete the contents of the Temporary Internet Files folder yourself. Delete the contents of the Temporary Internet Files folder. Follow these steps according to your version of Windows. Press and hold (or right-click) Start > Control Panel > Internet Options . Select the General tab, and then select Delete under Browsing history . Select Delete all > Yes > OK . Select Start > Control Panel > Network and Internet > Internet Options . Select the General tab, and then select Delete under Browsing history . Select Delete all > Yes > OK . Exit Internet Explorer. Exit any instances of Windows Explorer. Select Start > Control Panel , and then double-click Internet Options . On the General tab, select Delete Files under Temporary Internet Files . In the Delete Files dialog box, click to select the Delete all offline content check box. Select OK two times. Note: If the Temporary Internet Files folder contains a large amount of webpage content, this process may take several minutes to complete. The Temporary Internet Files (or cache) folder is used by Windows Internet Explorer and by MSN Explorer to store webpage content on the computer hard disk for quick viewing. This cache lets Internet Explorer or MSN Explorer download only the content that has changed since you last viewed a webpage, instead of downloading all the content every time that the page is displayed. An administrator might have customized the settings for your Temporary Internet Files folder to prevent you from changing the settings. For example, the administrator can remove the General tab from the interface in the Internet Options dialog box. If you cannot access the Internet Options dialog box or the General tab, contact your administrator for more information. Files that start with the word "Cookie" may remain in your Temporary Internet Files folder after you follow these steps. These files are pointers to the actual cookie files that are located in your Cookies folder. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 158769 Emptying Temporary Internet Files folder leaves cookies files For more information about how to delete cookies, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 278835 How to delete cookie files in Internet Explorer. In some cases, files that are downloaded from websites may remain in your Temporary Internet Files folder but will not be visible in Windows Explorer after you follow these steps. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 301057 Temporary Internet files use more disk space than specified. For more information about the Temporary Internet Files folder, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Windows Temporary Files – Everything you want to know. We have already seen the nature of some temporary files like Temporary Internet Files, Index.dat file, Cookies, and Prefetch Files. In this article, we shall have a look at a few aspects of the Windows Temporary Files, which your computer creates, during the course of its normal running. Windows Temporary Files. What are Temporary Files in Windows 10. Temporary Files in Windows are those junk files whose use is only temporary and become redundant once the task in hand is completed. Such temporary files are created to hold data temporarily while a file is being created or processed or used. Why are Temporary Files created. Windows Temporary files are created by the operating system during the normal course of its running when there may not be enough memory allocated for the task. Software that uses large amounts of data like Graphics, Video, or Media editing software also creates temporary files. Such created temporary files are more often than not, left behind even when the task is over, leading to their wasting disk space. Temporary Files are also created for backup purposes, by programs. For instance, Microsoft Office saves a Temporary File of the open document every few minutes. If you save the document and exit, the Temporary File gets deleted. If the program crashes unexpectedly, the Temporary File is not deleted. They can thus be useful to help recover lost data if the program or the system crashes. Ideally, the Temporary Files should get deleted once the program exits. But this is not always the case, leading to wasted disk space. Temporary Files Location. %systemdrive%\Windows\Temp %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Temp. If you click on C:\Windows\Temp you will receive a message You don’t currently have permission to access this folder . Click on Continue to do so. You will see that most of its contents are .tmp, .temp and .txt files. The other folder typically located at C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp , is created for each User. It’s a hidden folder and you will have to first ‘un-hide’ System folders from the Folder Options before you can see it. The Temporary files created by the Windows operating system are usually stored in the %system%\Windows\Temp folder, whereas the ones created by the User when running any software is stored in his user profile at %userprofiles%\AppData\Local\. Temporary Files of a particular software may also be located in a sub-folder, inside the parent folder of the particular software. On rare occasions, a temporary file or a temporary files folder may get created into the root directory of the C (System) drive. You may want to examine the folder in details, and then delete it if you are sure, if it indeed contains temporary files. Change the location of the Temp folder. If you wish, you can change the location of the Temporary Files folder. To do so, open System Properties via the Control Panel > Environment Variables > Edit the System and/or the User variables as you wish. But do remember that it is never a good idea to combine the temporary directories together for all the user profiles, for security reasons , since there have been cases of security vulnerabilities with temporary files, due to a particular software’s incorrect file permissions or race conditions. Empty Temporary Files folder. There are several different ways to delete Temporary Files. You can use freeware junk file cleaners or the in-built Disk Cleanup utility to easily empty the contents of the Temp folders. Planning to empty the contents of your Windows Installer Folder or WinSxS directory due to its sheer large size!? Think again! Temporary Downloads Folder. I have asked the same question about three times now but still have not received an answer to my question. I simply want to view the files/folders contained in Temporary Downloads. I know that they are the same files/folders that are stored in my regular c/users/name/downloads. I know that I cannot see them using %temp%, temp or through storage (this only gives me the option to delete the temporary downloads. I don't want to us the Clean-Up program either (which doesn't even show these files as an option to delete) and I also cannot see them through user/appdata/local/temp. I just want to know how I can view what it is the temporary Downloads folder so that I can pick and choose what things I want to delete but no one seems to either want to answer this question because the only answers I am getting are not at all what I asked. Obviously these temp files are somewhere. I just want to know where. Can anyone answer my actual question without any other information? It would be much appreciated. Subscribe Subscribe to RSS feed. Report abuse. Replies (4) 1. There is no Temporary Downloads folder in Windows 10, your browser sets where your downloads are stored - accessible through settings in your browser. Temporary files created during the download are also stored there, which is typically c/users/name/downloads unless moved by the user. 2. This folder is accessible on all computers through %UserProfile%\Downloads. 3. Windows 10 Updates and installers are stored in C:\WIndows. BT and C:\ESD before the ISO is created. 4. %Temp% will bring you to the users temporary folder where temporary files your applications create are stored, not temporary downloads - though when you donwload software and install it, the installation files are stored there while the installer is loading, but are normally deleted by the installer upon completion. If this does not answer your question, please explain exactly what files you are looking for and I will direct you to where they get stored . . . Power to the Developer! MSI GV72 - 17.3", i7-8750H (Hex Core), 32GB DDR4, 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, 256GB NVMe M2, 2TB HDD. Finding temp files in Windows 10. Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback. Mark the code line below, then press Ctrl+C to copy it. Press the Windows key + R. Press Ctrl+V to paste the code line, then press Enter. Thanks for the hint, but it just brings up the black command screen with the path: C:/users/MY MAME ABREVIATED/appdata/local/temp and instruction to press any key to continue. But it doesn't go anywhere. So I typed the path into File explorer, and it came up with a bunch of installation files and the like, and one Word.doc, but not the one I was looking for. Any other ideas? Report abuse. 3 people found this reply helpful. Was this reply helpful? Sorry this didn't help. Great! Thanks for your feedback. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback. Thanks for the hint, but it just brings up the black command screen with the path: C:/users/MY MAME ABREVIATED/appdata/local/temp and instruction to press any key to continue. But it doesn't go anywhere. The command did exactly what you asked for: It shows you the temp folder, which you were previously unable to find. If this folder does not contain your lost Word file then I'm afraid you're out of luck. Report abuse. 4 people found this reply helpful. Was this reply helpful? Sorry this didn't help. Great! Thanks for your feedback. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback. Mark the code line below, then press Ctrl+C to copy it. Press the Windows key + R. Press Ctrl+V to paste the code line, then press Enter. Thanks for the hint, but it just brings up the black command screen with the path: C:/users/MY MAME ABREVIATED/appdata/local/temp and instruction to press any key to continue. But it doesn't go anywhere. Viewing All Files in Temporary Downloads. I have asked this question a couple of times but am not getting the answer unfortunately. I just want to know how I can view the temporary Downloads folder in such a way that I can choose what I want to delete. I want to clean up this massive file but I want to make sure that deleting something is not going to have negative consequences when I want to play a game I downloaded etc. From reading information posted here it has been stated that deleted something from the temporary Downloads folder will not delete the game from my computer as it is already located in my regular c/user/lynn/downloads area. So,again, how can I view a list of files in the temp downloads so I can pick and choose what to delete. I asked this question before and the answer I got was "the temp downloads folder has the same files/folders as your regular downloads folder". I know this but that does not help me. I just need someone to tell me how to pull up a list of the temp downloads files so that I can pick and choose what to delete. Please help! Also, I cannot reply to answers because it gets kicked back to me saying message cannot be delivered so please don't ask me any questions. I just need that one simple question answered - where can I view what is in the temporary downloads folder and not just where I can click the box and delete everything. I tried %temp% and also temp in the bar thingy (lol) but the files that I know should be there (ie. games etc.) are not showing up. An answer to this question which I thought would be simple but is not would be very helpful to me. Thanks, Lynn.