Hiberfil.sys Delete !!better!! Jun 2026

Before you run that command, consider the trade-offs.

If you’ve ever run a disk cleanup tool or casually browsed your C: drive looking for junk to delete, you’ve likely stumbled across a massive, mysterious file sitting in the root directory: hiberfil.sys . hiberfil.sys delete

Close the Command Prompt.

However, simply navigating to the file and pressing the "Delete" key is futile. Windows protects hiberfil.sys as a critical system file, preventing its deletion through standard file management. Attempting to do so will result in an "access denied" error. To truly remove it, a user must use a command-line tool with administrative privileges, specifically the powercfg command. Executing powercfg -h off in an elevated Command Prompt or PowerShell window will delete hiberfil.sys and disable the Hibernate and Fast Startup features. This action immediately frees up the reserved disk space. Conversely, powercfg -h on will recreate the file and re-enable the features. Before you run that command, consider the trade-offs