Clean up old files

Over time your PS3 will accumulate various files on its hard-drive, mostly from games that you have played but also videos or other media that you may have downloaded. Some games can even require gigabytes for installation!

These files don’t clean themselves up automatically so eventually your console can get cluttered and run out of room. Every now and again it’s worth doing a spring clean!

How much free space do I have?

Go to the Settings menu in the XMB and choose System Settings
Scroll down to the bottom and choose System information
The Free space information will show how much space (GBs) is free and the total capacity of the PS3’s hard-disk

Remove old game demos

Have you downloaded any game demos from Playstation Store that you don’t play any more?

Go to the Game menu and find the demo you wish to delete
Press the Triangle button on your controller to show the options
If you want to see how big the demo file is, choose Information and check the Size field
Choose Delete from the options and choose Yes to confirm the deletion

Delete game installation files

The “Game Data Utility” stores installation files and patches. Some Blu-ray games install content to the hard-drive. Do not delete anything from here unless you have finished with the associated game.

Go to the Game menu and choose the Game Data Utility feature
Check for files of games you don’t have or play any more. Press the controller’s Triangle button to bring up the options
To see the size of the file, go into Information
To remove it, choose Delete and then Yes to confirm

Delete media (video/music/photos)

If you ever downloaded videos off the Playstation Store or copied across media like music or photos that you no longer need, you may want to remove them. Here’s an example where I delete a game trailer video:

Go to the Video menu
Find the file you want to remove, press the controller’s Triangle button to bring up the options
Choose Delete. You can see the filesize of the video on the confirmation screen. Choose Yes to confirm

Comments

shanon tipton • May 24th, 2009 at 1:56 am
Hi, how would i go about deleting extra content(add ons). for example, i purchased the map pack for call of duty 4. and i would like to delete it. thx

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KJ • June 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Hi! This may seem like a stupid question, but just starting out with the ps3…..If you’re downloading files online and the download stops partway through (due to connection failure), does the part thats been downloaded remain on the hard-drive of the ps3? Does that get overwritten if you then reconnect and download the file again, or is the partially-downloaded file left hanging around on the hard-drive? If so, is there a way to delete it? Hope someone can help, please!

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CyberBob • September 20th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
How do I restrict someone from deleting a file?! Users aren’t password protected. I’ve bought/downloaded a game but don’t want little Jimmy deleting it (either by mistake or maliciously).

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- Flame • September 20th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
  Cyberbob: I don’t believe there is any feature to protect files. If you’ve bought a game from PS Store, it is always possible to re-download it.
  
  Reply
Mangah • October 26th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Hello
Regarding Deleting Demos. I had a demo and tried deleting it and got an error during delete. Now i have an icon of an unkown file in place of the demo and every time I try to delete this file I am unable to.
Any ideas?

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CC • December 21st, 2009 at 9:46 pm
How do you delete multiple ones at once so it wont take as long to free up space?

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duteboxx • December 29th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Is there someway to delete songs you dont want from the hd for rockband EG. all the free crap thay give ya!!!???

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Jennifer • December 29th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
I accidentally deleted my user. Is there anyway I can get it back..

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ROBSTER • February 3rd, 2010 at 5:02 pm
how do i get back my deleted files on PS3

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Alex • February 27th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
i was looking at my fee space and saw i only had about 1.5 gigs left. after deleting my vids and pics, i saw it didnt do SQUAT. i then realized that i had created a UK account to see upcoming news faster and i was wondering if having another profile takes up any space? does it?

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PS3 Explained