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

Erick Flores91

i bought infamous 2 and its telling my ps3 does not have enough memory? help?
Mikalex1996

I have 37GB left. InFamous is 15 GB, yet, it says i don’t have enough space. i deleted EVERYTHING on it, still, same issue.
Tristan B

i am playing gran turismo 5 for the first time ONLINE. i already had saved data from playing offline but it says i need 32mb to go back on the game (to save anything new from having online) i have deleted ten items which acumulate to over 10000 mb and it still says that i have no space PLEASE HELP!

Cody

mine to its making me really mad

http://www.facebook.com/people/Tobi-Pulm/100001395722838 Tobi Pulm

I have the same problem as Tristan B
Taylormade

Thanks this really helped my son has been burning my ears off to play fifa 12 for days didn’t know how to free up hard disc space.
Ar730videogames

I bought infamous 2 off psn store and downloaded it but it doesnt appear on my downloads list i called playstation and they told me i needed the demo but tht didnt work i went to download the full game trial but it told me that this content cannot be accessed on this account plz help me i just dpent 60 bucks on a trial that said it was the full game
Jake

I was playing a racing game. After losing the race it saved, and I lost my car…. I want to delete the latest save but when look at the saved data on the XMB all it shows is one file. I don’t want to lose everything, I just want to delete the latest save to bring me back to where I was before the last race. Any ideas?
JBUNTING93

Hi, am having a problem with Fifa 12 i am trying to play fifa ultimate team and it lets me play matches and then disconnects me and i do not recieve coins or a win so i got on to ea about is and they was just telling me the same stuff over and over again and its really annoying as it has been happening since i first got the game ( on release day) i have made a new account connected on wireless connected on wired and disabled my media servers and restored my ps3and none of them work PLEASE HELP it’s been nearly a month Thank’s Jamie
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JFPG2DHXIMNLJATSNX5QVLPHMU Ken

My son’s PS3 is one of the older, large-as-a-tank ones that they’ve had obviously for years (and have enjoyed) but cannot load DC Universe because a warning appears and said there isn’t enough memory (which is why we removed the game/info way back right after the free period)….but now they want to play it again but wala, we have the memory issue again. I have a 1TB drive piggy-backed off the PS3….is there anyway to move the current files to the TB USB Drive? Or, can i have data/files write to it so we can intall/play DC Universe or is it time to buy yet another PS3? Thanks

http://ps3explained.com/ Flame

You can move Photos/Movies/Music to an external drive, but game related files have to stay on the PS3.

Caleb1133

So I tried to delete DC universe online ( a whopping 18 GBs) It deleted but it still says i have the 18GBs on the sytem info,please help.

Rgibbs5585

you may need to reformat your ps3, I recommend that you back up any movies or downloaded games that you want to keep on a usb flash drive, you can get them in larger sizes, 64 or 128G once you have them stored on your flash drive, remove the USB stick, at this point you can either use the format utility to delete everything on your ps3 or Restore PS3 System (recommended) to format your hard disk and restore factory settings, after you complete this operation you will have a like new system that you will need to run system update under settings to use, good luck, hope this helps

Jgweezy6

i have cleaned up everything that i can but i still only have 14gb of free space??? and another thing, i rented ‘the matrix’ in the ps3 store and it is taking FOREVER to download, and it will not let me play it in the background without buffering every second, my internet is running just as fast as usual, i have no idea what it is… any ideas on these things would be MUCH appreciated
Josh

I’ve done everything here, but I still don’t have enough space of Saints Row 2….I deleted demos, game data files, and I barely have any music/pictures and the ones I do are in KB’s and it’s really frustrating because I have an older PS3 model one of the very first models and it only have like 40-30 GIGS on it total and at the moment I only have Saints Row 3 and DC Universe online game data’s! Is there anything else that’s causing me to have such low space? Please reply if you know, thanks.

Zcvnmn

DC universe takes up to 20 GB so tht would be the problem

Jasmina

I have a 360gb ps3 and when I stream videos it says that I have no memory lefy I only have one game sabed which takes barely any space. I just got my ps3 a couple days ago if anyone can help ot would be appreciated. Thanks. Btw, I checked everything that it says to do here and nothing helped.

Codemann88

im having the same problem

Fff

awesome. cleared enough space for saaints row 3
Yo

So easy to follow!
Gangolli Tarun384

if i delete any saved games does it lower my memory
Gangolli Tarun384

i just got my ps3 few weeks ago 320 gigs and got two good games batman arham city and NFS the run limited edition so if i delete anything like a game save does it lower the memory or does it go back to 320 gigs
matt

I’ve deleted gigs and gigs of saved game files.. yet when i check ‘free space’ under system info.. it remains a measly 789MB out of 37 gigs. I don’t understand. Theres no ‘recycling bin’ anywhere to be found.. except for doing a system restore, idk how to get space. I just want to freaking play Battlefield 3 and don’t want to delete saved info for other games.. I’ve deleted tons of stuff, but the system info hasn’t changed at all. save me.
Regan_music

i have 8 gb being used on nothing… how the fuck?
Aazagthoth

I’ve used up 150 GB’s, yet I still have many games pre-ordered… ****!
Got like 30 PS3 games
guest

Guys memory is like your ps3s RAM if u kow what that is. The hard disk space is comepletly differnt
ANONYMOUS

so my hard drives free space is 13 / 37 GB and ive just recently downloaxed DC Universe Online, if you know how big that is 127 MB and its still not installed, so i “clean out” my unwanted demos and files. But its still says 13 / 37 GB Free Space.

so i restarted the system thinking it was just a visual problem but that was not the case, the free space is same as ever.

so, can you tell if my PS3 is broken or what? and i still need an extra 8375 MB for the installation :/
Luiseg99

Whenever I try to go into the PS store, it always says I need more free space in my hard disk. (20MB) My PS3 says 534 MB/149 GB. I don’t know anything about hard disks/drives, and I’ve never altered my PS3 in any way other than installing games. Help!

Luiseg99

I’ve also installed A BUNCH of stuff. It still says 534.

Micheles

Ok so I restored the ps3 to “new” again and its still says I do not have enough memory….now what?

PS3 Explained