Update:

Since the posting of this original article, new information is available about “How Can I Delete the System Volume Information Folder?” and in addition we have tips on how to keep the System Volume Information folder off the USB Stick.

If you have a drive formatted from a Windows system, and you have your settings showing hidden files and folders, then a “System Volume Information” folder will appear with unclear contents and purpose. Why is it there? And how much space on your drive is it actually consuming?

Both Windows 10 and Windows 11 automatically create the System Volume Information folder on removable drives, and this folder is protected with strict permissions that block user access—even for administrators. Microsoft designed this folder to store metadata and system configuration files that help Windows manage indexing, restore points, and certain USB device interactions. Despite these intended functions, our testing on Windows 10 and Windows 11 showed that USB drives worked perfectly fine without the folder, even when storing different file types and large data sets. In most cases, deleting it or preventing its creation had no negative impact on drive performance or file integrity.

According to the Windows documentation, this folder is where certain behaviors are stored when creating a System Restore point but that doesn’t apply to all users and furthers the confusion as to why it would be located on a drive that is being used for other purposes. To minimize the useless space taken up on our drives, the first attempt was to shrink it through the Control Panel. Through the Control Panel > System and Security > System > System Protection, there are Protection Settings which can enable System Restore and control how much disk space Windows uses.

Unfortunately, shrinking it did not free up as much space as we were looking for so the next step was to find a way to get rid of it. Now since this is a Windows file, and Windows isn’t even too keen on letting us access the file, it doesn’t like the idea of deletion at all. After trying to find ways within the operating system to allow us to remove the file, we ended up looking at an outside option from Nexcopy whom we had worked with in the past. Their tool wasn’t built for deleting a single file but since we could just move our desired content back onto the drive after using their “Erase” function, and since it’s free, it ended up being a solid workaround. The end result? No more unruly folder and a useful software to keep around in case we find other unwanted files that our operating system won’t let us get rid of.

To dive into this topic a bit more, there is an extended article here: How can I delete the system volume information folder. Microsoft’s official word is found here: What we learned about the System Volume Information directory.