Deleting the hidden “$Windows.~BT” folder and recovering gigabytes of space on your hard drive is tempting. But what is this confusingly named folder for, and how important is it to your Windows installation?
What is the “$Windows.~BT” folder? Should it be deleted?
Windows creates the “$Windows.~BT” folder when you upgrade your operating system to a newer build. This folder contains all the files necessary for the upgrade process, such as temporary installation files and logs from the previous Windows installation.
Windows automatically deletes the “$Windows.~BT” folder after 10 days. Because manually deleting this folder will delete old Windows installation files, you will not be able to go back to a previous Windows build using the Go back in the menu Recovery during that time (for example, to downgrade from Windows 11 to Windows 10). Therefore, you should only remove this folder if you are satisfied with the current build of Windows on your PC. You can also safely delete large folders if Windows doesn't do it automatically after the grace period.
But you should not delete this hidden folder like any other folder on the desktop. Instead, you should turn to the Disk Cleanup or Command Prompt tool.
How to find and delete the folder “$Windows.~BT”
Because “$Windows.~BT” is a hidden folder, you need to configure Windows to display hidden files and folders to find it in File Explorer. Once done, the C:\$Windows.~BT folder will be displayed.
However, you cannot directly delete the “$Windows.~BT” folder. To do so, you need to run the Disk Cleanup tool. Here's how:
- Press Win + R to open the Run dialog box.
- Enter cleanmgr into the box and press Enter.
- Use the drop-down menu to select the system drive (usually C:) and click OK.
- Click the button Clean up system files.
- In Files to deleteuse the checkboxes to select the following options: Previous Windows Installations, Windows Update Cleanup, Windows upgrade log files, Temporary Windows installation files and Temporary files.
- Click OK.
- Select Delete Files to confirm.

If the “$Windows.~BT” folder is visible even after you run the Disk Cleanup tool, you will need to execute some commands in Command Prompt. To do that, open Command Prompt with admin rights and then run each of the following commands.
takeown /F C:\$Windows.~BT\* /R /A
icacls C:\$Windows.~BT\*.* /T /grant administrators:F
rmdir /S /Q C:\$Windows.~BT\
When you run the above commands, the “$Windows.~BT” folder will be permanently deleted.
Now you understand the purpose of the “$Windows.~BT” folder. You can decide how to handle it. In addition to the “$Windows.~BT” folder, you may also encounter folders such as “Windows.old”, “$WinREAgent”, “$SysReset” and others that can also be safely deleted with Disk Cleanup tool.
Wish you success!
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