How to Defrag a Computer

Windows 10 and 8

1. Open the Control Panel. The steps are slightly different depending on your operating system:

   1. Windows 10: Click the circle or magnifying glass to the right of the Start menu to open the Search bar, type control panel, then click Control Panel.
   2. Windows 8: Hover the mouse over the bottom-right corner of the screen to bring up the menu, click Settings, and then click Control Panel.

2. Select Small icons from the 'View by' menu. It's near the top-right corner of the window.

3. Click Administrative Tools. A list of admin tools will appear.

4. Double-click Defragment and Optimize Drives. It's in the main (right) panel. A list of drives on your computer will appear.

   1. If your hard drive is set up to defragment automatically, you'll see the word 'On' under 'Scheduled optimization' at the bottom of the window. You can change the schedule by clicking Change settings.

5. Select your drive and click Analyze. Windows will now check to see if your drive needs to be defragmented.

   1. If you have an SSD hard drive (solid state), this button will not be available. This is because it's not necessary to defragment your SSD drive.

6. Select your drive and click Optimize. If your hard drive needs to be defragmented, click this button to begin the process.

   1. The defragmentation process can take anywhere from several minutes to several hours to complete depending on the state of your disk drive.^{[1] X Research source}