Turn hibernation off (and reclaim hiberfil.sys space) — via Microsoft Learn

Commandlow riskNeeds adminWindows 11Windows 10

hiberfil.sys can take many gigabytes on the system drive. Turning hibernation off deletes it automatically. You lose Hibernate and Fast Startup, but Sleep and normal shutdown keep working.

Takes effect right away

Command

Run in an administrator Command Prompt / Terminal window.

powercfg /hibernate off

Undo

powercfg /hibernate on

Windows doesn't support deleting hiberfil.sys by hand; this command is the supported way. If you only want a smaller file but still want Fast Startup, use the reduced hiberfile tweak instead.

Sources

Powercfg command-line options — /hibernate — by Microsoft Learn
How to remove hibernation file to save space? — by Microsoft Q&A

Source reviewed: 2026-11-02
Link checked: 2026-11-02
Tested hands-on: Not by Oddbyte.Me

Oddbyte.Me hasn't tried this on every Windows build, so keep the undo handy.

hibernatehiberfil.sysdisk spacepowercfg

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