find the last time a file was accessed/used

Question

I use windows 7, and i am running out of space on partition C. I want to delete some files from Program Files, Program Files (x86) and Windows folders , however, i am afraid not to delete by accident something that is useful.

My criteria to distinguish between something 'useful' and something else 'not useful' is the time that has passed since that program has been used. Thus, my question is: can i find out the last time a file has been used? Windows does offer information about the last modified time, but that is different.

UPDATE: i have tried the solution with the "Date accessed" column. While the name Date acessed is intuitive and would suggest the last time the file was accessed, the actual information that it contains is irrelevant. I have tested this, and the "Date accessed" column certainly displays inaccurate information

Solution

EDIT: Seems that the method below is buggy, since the last access date feature is disabled by default in Windows 7. As a result the answer to a similar question here applies: Nop. It's not possible.

First of all, let me warn you that cleaning out those folders (and any folder) like that, is a bad idea. I'll get back on that later.

If you realy must, you can right click on the columns in File Explorer, and select the "More..." option.

Then, you select the "Date accessed" option:

Now, why is cleaning like this a bad idea?

• I'm not entirely sure the access date of core system files will be updated if the system loads them into memory.
• Especially with system files, it's not because they haven't been used for over a year, that they are not important. You will break a lot of stuff if you just randomly delete "old" system files.

So, what should you do?

https://www.howtogeek.com/125923/7-ways-to-free-up-hard-disk-space-on-windows/

Especially running WinDirStat is one of the best ways to get some insights into what is taking up so much space. This can be a forgotten video collection, a log file that has been going crazy, ...

Comments

[Jimmy_A]

Date accessed doesn't do that. Is more like the first time you opened the file than the last time

[Newton fan 01]

one more thing : is it possible to recursively add the "Date accessed" column to all child folders? so far, i have added it to the C folder, but in the child folders its still not visible. Of course, i can repeat the procedure, but given the large number of sub-folders that's pretty time-consuming

[Newton fan 01]

sorry for un-accepting the answer, but the information provided by the "Date accessed" column is irrelevant. There are programs which i have used this year, and the Date Accessed contains some 2016 date

[Wouter]

Ah, interesting. Access date indeed seems to be a buggy feature in Windows 7, as mentioned here: superuser.com/questions/251263/…

[Wouter]

Updated my answer according to new insights...

[Newton fan 01]

the 2nd answer in serverfault.com/questions/351777/… looks like an interesting solution. i have edited the registry, unfortunately the Date Accessed is still incorrect, but i believe the problem can be solved in a similar fashion - i still search for a solution; just because this feature is by default disabled in windows 7, i dont think its impossible to find out the correct Date Accessed

[Wouter]

The 2nd answer is not a solution to your problem, because it will not retrospectively change the accessed dates. It will only change the date for files that are accessed from then on. My answer as it stands now, is correct. There is no way to do this retrospectively...

[Newton fan 01]

now i understand