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  1. C:
  2. Users
  3. <utilisateur>
  4. AppData
  5. Roaming
FolderRisk: Caution

Roaming C:\Users\<utilisateur>\AppData\Roaming

AppData\Roaming (%APPDATA%): application settings and data that follow the user from one PC to another with a roaming profile.

Updated on By AltF4 Formation

What it’s for

%APPDATA% (FOLDERID_RoamingAppData) holds the settings and data an application wants to find again on any PC. With a roaming user profile, which keeps the profile on a file share, this folder is copied to the server at sign-out and pulled back at sign-in. Without roaming profiles it is just a local folder.

What it contains

  • One folder per application or vendor: mail and browser profiles, text editor configurations.
  • The Microsoft subfolder, which holds Windows component data (Windows\Recent, Windows\Start Menu, Credentials, Protect, and so on).
  • No caches or machine-specific data: those go to AppData\Local and AppData\LocalLow, which do not follow the profile.

Risks and best practices

  • Keep this folder light. An application that writes hundreds of megabytes here slows every sign-in and sign-out for roaming users. Redirect it to Local, or exclude the subfolder with the Group Policy setting “Exclude directories in roaming profile”.
  • Back it up before reinstalling a PC: it holds most applications’ configuration.
  • Deleting an application’s folder resets its settings. Do it with the application closed.

Useful commands

Fenêtre de terminal
# Heaviest folders (can take a while)
Get-ChildItem $env:APPDATA -Directory | ForEach-Object {
    [pscustomobject]@{ Name = $_.Name; Bytes = (Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Measure-Object Length -Sum).Sum }
} | Sort-Object Bytes -Descending

Folder contents

Folders 1

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