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  3. <utilisateur>
  4. AppData
  5. Local
  6. Microsoft
FolderRisk: Caution

Microsoft C:\Users\<utilisateur>\AppData\Local\Microsoft

The %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft folder: local data of Windows, Edge, OneDrive and Office for the user, mostly caches. It does not follow a roaming profile.

Updated on By AltF4 Formation

What it’s for

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft holds the local data of Microsoft components for the current user: Windows, Edge, OneDrive, Office. Like everything under AppData\Local, it stays on the machine and does not follow a roaming profile. What you find in it depends on the installed software.

What it contains

  • The Windows subfolder: Explorer thumbnails, the Internet cache (INetCache), error reports and other shell data.
  • Depending on the software installed: Edge, OneDrive, Office, Outlook (offline data files), and per-user secret stores (Credentials, Vault).
  • WindowsApps, which holds the app execution aliases of Store apps (for example winget.exe or python.exe).

Risks and best practices

  • The folder mixes harmless caches with data you want to keep (Outlook offline files, encrypted credentials), so a wholesale cleanup is expensive. Clean through the applications or the dedicated subfolders (see the linked pages).
  • Exclude it from a profile backup that only needs roaming data, but keep it for a full migration.
  • Before blaming an application for lost disk space, rank the subfolders by size with the command below.

Useful commands

Fenêtre de terminal
# Size of each subfolder (read-only, can be slow)
Get-ChildItem "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft" -Directory -Force | ForEach-Object {
  $b = (Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Recurse -Force -File -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Measure-Object Length -Sum).Sum
  [pscustomobject]@{ Folder = $_.Name; 'Size (MB)' = [math]::Round($b / 1MB, 1) }
} | Sort-Object 'Size (MB)' -Descending

Folder contents

Folders 1

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