I Just Looked Into My Temp Folder, And...

...found a lot of useless junk. I should delete all its contents. In fact, I know how to. But, how do I find out which files are still being used?

BTW, This is a Win11/64 laptop.

 

For me, I'd first make sure to save / close any files I've been working on. Then I would just delete everything. HOWEVER, if you want to be a tad more cautious, maybe sort by date first and delete everything older than a few days.

 

Just leave them alone. Windows today is very different from the past. It will automatically clean up any junk during routine background maintenance and even do occasional quick defrags all in the background. If you have an HDD you might run the built-in disk cleanup (or third party software of your choice) every 2 or 3 months and if you have an SSD you can pretty much forget disk cleanup. Either way just empty the recycle bin every now and then and let Windows do the rest.

If you want to see or adjust the settings go to Control Panel > Security and Maintenance. Click the dropdown for Maintenance to see/adjust the settings.

You can also right-click the Windows button and search 'task scheduler' to open the Task Scheduler the go to Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows and select Disk Cleanup to see/adjust the settings there then select Defrag to see/adjust those settings. It's interesting to check out but honestly I would just leave them alone. Windows is already doing it's job.

I have an SSD and do run CCleaner portable about once or twice a year just because I want to but it doesn't make a difference in performance like it used to with older versions of Windows and an HDD.