The PlayStation 5 ships with 825GB of storage, of which around 667GB is actually usable after the system software takes its share. That sounds like a lot until you install a few modern games. Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and other big titles can take 100GB or more each, and suddenly the console warns you that storage is full right when you want to download something new. The good news is that you can free up a lot of space without losing anything important, if you delete in the right order. Here is what to remove first.

Start with games you have finished or have not opened in months. Deleting a game does not delete your save data, which is stored separately, so you can reinstall the game later and pick up exactly where you left off. Your saves are safe unless you deliberately delete them, and they take up very little space. The games themselves are the problem, so sort your library by size and look at the biggest ones first. A single 120GB game you finished three months ago frees more space than ten small indie games combined.

Check the games you installed and never played, too. Most players have at least one or two titles they downloaded on a whim and never opened. Those are the easiest deletions, because you lose nothing. If you are unsure whether you will return to a game, check whether it is on PlayStation Plus, because Plus games can be re-downloaded any time while your subscription is active. Physical disc games are also easy to delete, because you can reinstall them from the disc whenever you want. Digital games you bought are tied to your account and can be re-downloaded from your library at any time.

After games, the next biggest space hog is usually captured video. The PS5 records gameplay clips automatically, and those clips add up fast, especially in 4K. Go to your Media Gallery, sort by size, and delete old clips you no longer need. You can also turn off automatic trophy recording, or set it to record only Platinum trophies, which stops the clips from piling up again. Screenshots take far less space than video, but a large collection of them still adds up, so delete the ones you do not need.

Also check your apps and your game versions. Streaming apps, the PS5 version of a game you also own on PS4, and duplicate installs all waste space. If you have both the PS4 and PS5 versions of a game installed, delete the one you do not play. Check for games that downloaded add-ons or language packs you do not use, because some titles install extra content automatically. Finally, look in your storage settings for Other data, which includes temporary files and cache. The console manages this itself, but a full rebuild of the database from Safe Mode can clear out corrupted temporary files if your storage numbers look wrong.

Deleting games works, but it gets old fast if you do it every month. The permanent fix is to expand your storage. The PS5 has an M.2 SSD slot, and adding a compatible NVMe drive is the best upgrade you can make. A 1TB drive effectively doubles your usable space, and a 2TB drive means you can stop thinking about storage for a long time. The drive needs to meet Sony's requirements, including a heatsink, so check the official compatibility list before you buy. Installation takes about fifteen minutes and a screwdriver, and the console will format the drive for you.

If you do not want to open the console, an external USB drive is a cheaper option, but with a catch. You can store PS4 games on an external drive and play them from it, but PS5 games can only be stored there, not played. That is still useful, because you can move PS5 games you are not playing to the external drive and move them back when you want them, which is faster than re-downloading. Between deleting finished games, clearing old clips, and adding an M.2 drive, storage stops being a problem, and you can spend your time playing instead of managing gigabytes.

When PS5 storage is full, delete finished games first, because your saves are stored separately and safe. Then clear old video clips and duplicate game versions. For a permanent fix, add an M.2 SSD, which doubles your space and ends the monthly storage shuffle.