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

shanon tipton

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
- EDDIE_BALLIN
  
  You can actually do that, just delete the game data utility for that game and reinstall it.
KJ

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!
- http://www.myspace.com/hdtloko Sean Hamshar
  
  Hi, my name is Sean I have had PS3′s for four years, trust me on this, your question is not stupid at all, Im not certain if it remains on the hard-drive, but what I know bout computers ( which PS3′s are pretty much ) I have to say I really think that the partial DL stays on there, I will research it cuz I wanna know 4 sure too!! anyways you can Friend request me on PSN
  my PSN Username:SeanHamshar, I will respond again after I research it
  
  Sean
  - Dbuchanan8
    
    We deleted a game 90% won…did you ever figure out whether u can restore a deleted game file…since the ps3 has a hard drive i thought there may be some temporary files that i may be able to find …similar to restoring a hard drive to a previous point in time….for a computer. thanks
CyberBob

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).
- http://ps3explained.com/ Flame
  
  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.
Mangah

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?
CC

How do you delete multiple ones at once so it wont take as long to free up space?
- yr
  
  press triangle and then on the top right, choose delite multiple
duteboxx

Is there someway to delete songs you dont want from the hd for rockband EG. all the free crap thay give ya!!!???
Jennifer

I accidentally deleted my user. Is there anyway I can get it back..
- http://www.myspace.com/hdtloko PSNUser:SeanHamshar
  
  if your talking bout your PSN Username then just sign up again like you did but at the “Create new user” page (1 be4 you give any info) instead of clicking create new, there is another one on same page below the create new, click on it then type in your lost PSN E-mail Add. u used and your PW,
  
  if you are talking bout a regular User (A PS3 user) I accidently got my old 1 be4, I have heard you cant but I swear I did, I just put in the old name of the user, and all my trophies were still there & everything, if not then I recommend calling PS3 Cus. Support
ROBSTER

how do i get back my deleted files on PS3
- elusive187
  
  you can’t ROBSTER!!
  unless you have a apple mac ! and are willing to take out the HD from PS3 and put it into an external case and run it through an undelete program, on said apple mac !! and even then might NOT get back all the files you deleted.
  I havent tried to undelete anything but I have ran though a PS3 drive on Mac and all is in a different format that has a different extension that makes it pretty unreadable !
Alex

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?
michael

Hi, I accidentally deleted my game data utility for MW2, and I had the map pack, and now I don’t. Please help
- http://ps3explained.com/ Flame
  
  Hi michael – just go into Playstation Store, go to your downloads (option up the top) and download the map pack again.
mary

hey i have a couple of questions if u click on a demo and it starts to download and you cancel it why does it stay in the playstation store under downloads? does it take up space and if so how do i delete it? thanks
- http://ps3explained.com/ Flame
  
  In the Playstation Store there is a “Download List” which just lists everything you’ve downloaded or bought from the store. Those files may no longer be actually on your PS3, but the list can be useful as a reference in the future.
  
  There is also the “Downloads” section under your PS3′s Network menu. This holds partially downloaded files. So yes they are consuming space on the hard-drive, but you can bring up the options on each file and delete it.
Miguel

Hey, i’ve done everything that this thing asks, and i’m still under a gigabyte of space on my PS3. I’ve made sure i have no media things such as audio or video, and deleted all the content i didn’t want. It says i got 737kb out of 77 gb. Please help!
Justin

Hi. How do I clear items off my download list once I’ve finished with them?
FBram

Hey Guys… Would you mind me translating your docs and posting in a forum (with proper credits and links to ps3explained)?
- http://ps3explained.com/ Flame
  
  Hi FBram – yes that would be fine. It would be great if you would send me a copy too 8) flame@ps3explained.com
justin

like moron i formatted my hard drive not knowing the full extent of what it would erase.it erased my dowloaded and bought marvel vs capcom 2 and when i try to re buy it it has that symbol that says its purchased even though its deleted. Am i just screwed?
- http://ps3explained.com/ Flame
  
  Hi justin – you can download again anything you have purchased from the Playstation Store. Just go into the Store and choose one of the icons at the top of the screen called “View downloads” (I think).
  - happy man
    
    flame ur th best i had the same prob as justin but now saved me like 70$
- http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
  
  NO. go to download list in the corner of the screen in the ps store it will show everything you bought in the download list and let you re download it onto 5 different playstations as many times as you want as long as your on the screen name you bought it on. the games you buy from stores are always stored in the store just in case you lose it you can always redownload it there for free. but beware if its a movie you cannot redownload it more then once.
Twitch

Can you use a USB Flash drive for extra memory???
Is there something I can externally add for extra memory???

Does watching Netflix on the PS3 take up space from loading the videos? If so- does anyone know how to clear it?

Thanks!
- http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
  
  im not sure abotu netflix because i dont have it but yes as i noted in other posts above you can add extra memory with a usb harddrive, get a terabyte or 500gb you can get them on sale for 100$ but beware that if you hear them clicking within a year then it means its going to crash on you soon and back it up. large file hard drives are known to crash within 2 years. you can store a large amount of movies, mp3s and photos on your external usb hard drive. i have 700 gigs of movies on mine. everytime my dlc from the ps3 store loads and freezes my ps3 and crashes it i lose all my movies so i got the usb drive and problem solved
cork

Hi I have a question, when logging into a website such as facebook, my ps3 will freeze after I hit sign in, is there a way to prevent this, like maybe clearing out the hard drive or something? A help is appreciated, thanks.
- twitch
  
  Not sure why it is freezing but you can clean up your browsing history. Go to the menu with the browser on it and hit triangle. Then go to options. Scroll down and clear history/cache. It should free up space so the browser does not lag.
- http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
  
  this is pretty common with alot of websites when you use the ps3 as a browser, its the javascript code usually. most of the codes webpages use sony ps3 blocks those codes because those codes are most known for making viruses in webpages and adding spyware and etc. so sony decided to just block it entirely most the time leaving alot of content not loading right and making things freeze. if i stream about 5 movies itll be playing fine and all of a sudden just freeze in the middle of one. the web browser is kind of jsut a last minute small addon thrown into the ps3. its going to continue freezing, its common, and i just wouldnt use the browser at all if you dont have to
cal

hey i deleted my midnight club la complete ed. game data by accident.. i read that it should just reinstall when you play it but its not reinstalling.. help would be very much appreciated
- Ryan
  
  how do u delete the save file
damien s.

Ok I finally realize that my 60 gig PS3 has barely under 3000 MB and I deleted everything that I didn’t need. Some game data I keep for future reference if I choose to play it again but I added it up to about 7 gigs without those games. where is the extra memory going to and where might the hidden memory be located if I were to find them? Help me please and also will an external HD help the memory problem because I’m thinking of getting one for my 60 gig or should I buy a new slim PS3?
- Nikev18
  
  Why buy a new ps3? Just upgrade your HDD. You can upgrade up tp 500gb HDD.
  - Kanieskid
    
    How can u upgrade without getting a new harddrive
  - Stuff
    
    you are an idiot.
  - http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
    
    you can buy a usb hard drive, you can store all your music, movies and photos on it. i dont think u can store games on it but you can backup game saves to it. i have a 1 terabyte usb hard drive i plug it right in the front where the controller charges and it pops up in the menu. but make sure you click on triangle when highlighting the usb device and click display all so it shows everything, if u dont do that then itll say your usb drive is blank. its quite frankly a dumb fucking option, its as dumb as the rest of the shit on the xmb menu like not being able to sort out the tags on mp3 files listed under “unknown”
steve

i down loaded some songs from my cousins thumb drive and i got the music and this other stuff i reformated the hard drive but its still there is there any thing eles i can do to delete this stuff
guest

this was an awesome site. It helped me a lot. Thank you very much!!!!!!!!
boogiepopcaos

EXCELLENT SITE
Ashleymeadows64

what if you went back to ps store and reinstalled your map pack. because i lost mine when i deleted my game data utility
- http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
  
  any game or dlc game you buy from the ps store you can at anytime go back and click download list in the top corner and redownload it for free from the entire list that shows everything you bought or played. you can do this on 5 diff ps3s and then no more. so dont let your friends game share or youll be f’d when your ps3 crashes. although u can do that with games, you cannot with movies, once you buy a movie you get once chance to redownload it then you can never download it ever again.
Kanieskid

I need help my ps3 says I have 7755 mb left but it also says I have 71 gb how would I get more memory without buying a new hardrive or restoring my system
Ic3orshane

I have 2755 mb free of 37 gb. I have 3 games downloaded. Small games too. No music, no movies, nothin! I cant download infamous because theres not enough room wtfffff? please help me
- Kanemku
  
  Same fucking shit!
- http://ps3explained.com/ Flame
  
  The 40GB PS3 really doesn’t fit much. Only thing you can do is delete anything you no longer need like games you don’t play any more.
  - Mike
    
    It doesn’t have anything to do with 40gb not being much. I have the same problem and there’s no way in hell there’s 5gb worth of shit on my ps3
- HUNTR187
  
  I am trying to download infamous too. It took 14 hour to download with out any breaks. Now I can’t install.
- Cyberjoker
  
  I have just had the same prob. I have a 320GB ps3 with no photos, movies oranything like that and it is saying can’t download infamous not enough space?!? WTF I have games saves for about 6 games on there and three demos. There is no way i have used 320GB.
  Does anyone know if there’s a way to easily see what’s taking up the space???
redlegs1131

IC3orshane: I had the same problem you did. I deleted my game files under Game Date Utility from games I don’t use anymore, as suggested above, and I was able to clear up over 15 GB.
Nothing

Thanks! huge help!
Scootsie119

i posted this in a ps3 furom and got flamed for compareing it to xbox. but hear goes, for the second time i jsut recently went through all account(3) on my ps3 (80gb) and delted all music files movie files game data that i dont play and all demos. i have 15gb out of 73free how is this??? how is it only 15gb free?? ive only play a handful of games on this ps3 so i dont see how so much info is on it.
I compared it to my 120gb hard drive on xbox and everyone flamed me saying its not an xbox hard drive, well dont all hard drives work the same.
first off sorry for typos im typing fast cuz i have class lol.
i have game saves for nba 2k11 on my 2 brothers acounts (thats all notihng else) and jsut some saave fiels for Black POs batman AHrd rain and a few more games. I haev 5 games dl’ed from the store and no DLC at all. and 60gb is used up
Now my xbox hard drive is right at 81gb right now, with all teh updates, netflix, facebook, lastfm, 4 user accounts wiht my account being the biggest. Ive played plenty of gaems on this xbox and hardly deleted any game saved files jsut old sports games.
And i have 91 arcade and indie games downloaded to the hard drive. I have 3 disc installed to the Hard Drive Deadrising2, RE5 and L4d2. I bought full gaems online Red dead redemption, Bioshock and Alan wake. i also have plenty of DLC for all COd games, Fallout, RE5, Red dead, Borderlands and a few more i cant think right now.
So my question is how can i have so much stuff on my xbox hard drive and it only be 81gb full and i have only 5 games and few games saves on my ps3 hard drive and its 60gb full 20 less than the xbox,thats does not make sense to me.
I also loked up all the sizes for everything saved and it doesnt even come anywhere near 60gbs.
HOw can i fix this? can i put these saved files on a usb drive and format the ps3 harddrive??
- Mike
  
  Fuck yeah man. I just downloaded my welcome back games and there aint a damn thing on my ps3 but it say I have less than a gig of space left… after I did all the stuff detailed in this article. How the fuck is that possible? I got rid of my xbox after it broke but god damn, I’d rather just get some kind of insurance and have a system worth having. I had sooo much shit on my 360 and was nowhere near the limit. Matter of fact, the same goes for my OG xbox. WTF kind of hard drive does sony use?
Torres Jacobsen

How do you save patch 1.07 for black ops to a usb?
Mickmack_

II have a 40g and from what I make out it seems that play station forgot to tell us that include all the soft ware that run the PS3 into that figure. So we only end up with like 2-5 gig to store stuff it bloody false advertising. If the actual memory that’s available to use is only 4 gig then just faking say so you bunch off deceiving arsholes. Don’t make it sound like u have this hard drive that is not even usable. Fck wits
- http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
  
  the software shouldnt and doesnt take up more then 2gb tops unless your using a outdated firmware and allocating 10gb to otheros, your data is being used probabbly by the game data utility. which isnt ps3s fault, its the games u play they isntall it in the background. just delete it for games u dont use anymore.
http://www.facebook.com/jcaden Jaime Eduardo Cadena

This is incredible… I downloaded Dead Nation (1.5 GB), Infamous (8 GB – in progress) and God of War I (7 GB – in progress)… I deleted everything else on my ps3, EVERYTHING ELSE. Result: 3262 MB / 37 GB!!!!!! can anyone explain me what is going on with the 33 GB that are used by something I don’t find anywhere. How can I use THE 33 GB THAT I SHOULD BE ABLE TO USE FOR DOWNLOADS AND STUFF?!?!?!?! WHERE CAN I GET THIS INFORMATION?!?!?!
- Teembyrd
  
  I can see we’re ALL having the same damn problem. There is no reason or explanation to WHY just 3-5 games locks up the Sony HDD. I’ve cleared everything unusable on the disk drive and STILL can’t play Infamous. It downloaded alright, but says not enough space on HDD to install. How’s that even possible when it accepted it to begin with? What good is a FREE download to keep us as customers when they screw us after we download it? I swore to never buy another XBox due to their constantly breaking machines and screwing with their loyal customers. Now it seems that Sony will be put on hold too until they figure out a way to make it up to us. I’m going back to the PS2. I liked life simpler when the device was a GAMING device instead of a damn NASA launching pad computer. A big “C’mon Son” sign put around Sony’s neck.
  - http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
    
    if you download a 8 gig file and install it then that is 16 gb until the original file is gone. so the ps3 is calculating double the amount of space because it needs double to install it so its reserving the space for it, its moving a file around in the background and unpacking it so at one point you have the unpacked game and then the packed game, the packed game unpacks causing 16g used, and then deletes the packed game leaving the unpacked game and back down to 8gb. the 40gb models are way outdated. when those were made the ps store barely had anything in it, now we have full games and full game trials u have to realise those didnt exist 5 yrs ago and thats why those models are extinct and the newer ps3s have bigger hard drives now. also what your going to want to do like i said in the above posts is delete game data utility, NOT the game saves. there 2 diff things. game data utility can take up huge amounts of space. everytime u play a game it instals game data utility. i just freed up 30 gigs out of my friends ps3 for him. i hope some of this helps.
- Nurex
  
  PS Network message said I had no HD space. I was in the same boat, unable to download the freebies. I used the format utility under the system settings. Then, I pressed the quick option. I freed up 67 gb and downloaded infamous. The PS3 did not erase my user account or settings.
Airondoom

i have nothin downloaded mabey a few things that add up to like 2gb so have 40 gb it says 37 free space that meens it take about 10gb for all settigs and stuff wtf xbox takes like 2gb
- http://twitter.com/CraftedByHand Harry Hudson
  
  No this is an issue with the way Gigabytes are calculated differently with the system and the hard drive companies. The Hard drive uses a common setting of 1,000,000,000 bytes as 1Gb but the system has its Gb reading set to 1073741824 because of the actual IEC value of a gigabyte, this is what gives the difference, which means…
  the bigger the hard drive the bigger the noted ‘loss’ in space which is why that other system you referenced uses less space.
  also system settings are stored on the system, keeping them on a hard drive is a bit dangerous and would slow everything up a hella lot.
  - http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
    
    this is correct i actually researched the same issue and the solution is exactly what this guy above me said about the iec value of a gigabyte. but what i dont understand in the original post is 40-37=3-2=1 not 10 lol so the settings are taking up only 1gb. unless your using a old ps3 firmware and you allocated 10gb to otheros. in the options you can pick how many gb you want set aside. also as i said in above posts the ps3 makes a little bit more room free for itself to work with so if its backing up a file or whatever it can make a backup of what your using now so it has to double system files and etc as its installing.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GSYWDJVITENUAGZU45FQPYBXRM Etch

the PS3 is absolutely HORRIBLE when it comes to counting Free Space. Everytime I delete a bunch of stuff, it would indicate the old size and all of a sudden after a few minutes/hours/days (very random) it displays the correct size! Sony has the best games but they SUCK when it comes to computing/OS!!
- http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
  
  i noticed this also, me and my friend were freeing up enough space for a game the game was something like 6g so we freed up 8g. he gets finished downloading and it says he only has 500megs left. some factors to take into consideration is the game might need double its size to install because it unpacks stuff in the background and moves things around. theres alot of files being stored in the background that you dont see and it doesnt count system stuff that it need to have double of when its updating. also the game data files that install when u load any game really eat up tons of space and then they update and download more to them and it throws the disk usage all over the place. and then theres also content that expires and etc.
steven

how do you delete old game on trophy collection
- http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
  
  you cant, it will always be visable because its stored on a playstation server, so everytime you get new trophys and look at your trophys or profile it syncs with the server re updating your trophy list.
shuldu_buldu

i cant play on black ops array map its starting loading and the screen goes black, and than i havto turn off my ps3 i tryed a new cd dosnt help, i tryed restore evryting dindnt help, restore ps3 factory settings didnt help dont know what to do. help me please
- http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
  
  do you have a 3d tv? whats happening is 3d games sometimes start in 3d mode so the screen goes black, theres nothing wrong with the tv or game its just “confuzed” no pun intended lol. this happens to me because i have a 3d tv, a sd tv and a regular hd tv, if i play on one playstation on the 3d tv it switches in the options list to 3d and saves. then when i go in the next room and play it the screen is black making the game unplayable and th eonly way to play it is to go back on my 3d tv and turn the 3d off in the options. so heres a few ideas, 1. do you have a 3d tv? or was your ps3 playing on a 3d tv or anything 3d related if so then thats your problem. you can try deleting you game file options but back everything up first on a usb drive, backup your options and game saves. first try deleting the game data utility at the top of the menu, and what that will do is reisntall the games background data, and then delete the options under the game save. before you do any of that do you know how to do the picture reset on your ps3? this happens when u go from a sd tv to a high def tv your screen will become black or the wrong size, well the same way you reset it will also reset the viewing options for games sometimes, especially 3d games that make the screen go black. i forgot the specific sequence to do this routine but its all over the internet, basically when the screen is black hold down your power button till it beeps and shuts off, turn it back on and hold the power button and dont let go itll beep a few times then let go, this resets your screen. like i said not sure if i explained how long to hold the button down right but just mess with it and itll work. one more last thing cod black ops does is actually freeze as its updating for the first time this is common you have to keep trying, or it freezes at the menu and u press buttons and nothing happens, what u have to do is check your controller your main one your using might say its being used on port 2 instead of 1, or vice versa switch it around and then try it. well i hope one of the above steps work for u. hopefully u know someone with a 3d tv you can take it to and turn the 3d off in the menu
Jillian

i Tried playing Saints Row 2 On My Ps3 and it said i have Insufficient Space on my HDD for a master game save and user profil make approxomatly 500KM Space…..i deleted some photos and music but still says please answer me i dont know what to do????
- http://twitter.com/ConfuzionMMR confuzion
  
  music and photos are very small file sizes, photos are only a few kilobytes, and one music file is about 3megs, a game is roughly 500-5,000m. so your really going to have to delete some of your game data utility files demos and movie samplers. also get a cheap usb drive and back up all your game saves. make sure you dont get the game saves mixed up with the game data utility, game data utility is something that installs the game on your ps3 in the background so the game loads faster, and game save files are checkpoints and level saves and all your progress. playstations dont have very much memory even the newest models dont have much memory, i upgraded mine with a laptop hard drive to hold 500 gigs and its already full, plus i bought a terabyte usb drive and that already has used 700 gigs sooooo if you dont want to get a new hard drive and its impossible to clean up anymore room you should get a terabyte usb drive or 500gb usb drive and plug it into your ps3 and save your movies on there to save space.
asdasdasd

I have a feeling that my deleted demos are still on the harddisk is this just me or am i doing something wrog?
Missmolly2006

My son accidently ‘restored’ the ps3. Now everything is gone, including user names, movies,and games. Is there ANY way to get my old settings back?
- http://ps3explained.com/ Flame
  
  A restore will wipe everything and return the PS3 to almost original state. Unless you guys had done a backup to external storage then unfortunately you’ve lost all the files.
  
  Bear in mind though that PSN accounts are stored online so you can make your Users again and sign into your accounts again. Anything you bought off PS Store can be re-downloaded (go to the Downloads section in the store).
Jesseb

I have a 74 gig Hard Drive and I don’t have much on my PS3. but it says I have only 2612 MB’s left. How can this be? At one point I did have a bunch of music on my PS3 but I deleted them all and I still have no space left. Is it a virus?
Paul Walton8

i purchased a game from the playstation store and i accidently deleted it .Can i get it back? cheers.
paul 1974
- http://ps3explained.com/ Flame
  
  Yes just go into the PS Store and there is a “Downloads” or similar in the top right. It has a list of all your purchases and you can just redownload whatever you need.

PS3 Explained