How to change partition size in Windows 10

by Andy, Updated on: March 1, 2021

This article introduces how to change partition size for Windows 10 computer without losing data. Resize disk partition with native Disk Management and partition editor software.

When system C drive is running out of space, nobody wants to start from scratch, so many people search by Google to find a better way. In technical forums, many people have similar questions such as:

• Is it possible to change partition size in Windows 10 without reinstalling OS.
• Is it safe to re-size partition and which tool is better to change allocated partition size.

The answer is definitely yes. To change volume size in Windows 10 laptop and desktop, there are 2 options: Windows built-in Disk Management and third party partition editor software. Because of many shortages, Disk Management is not the best tool to change partition size.

Change partition size with Windows 10 Disk Management

Windows 10 Disk Management inherited Shrink Volume and Extend Volume functions from previous version. Shrink Volume can decrease the size of both system C drive and data volumes. Extend Volume can increase size of a drive when there is adjacent Unallocated space. Both functions are safe to change partition size in Windows 10 (32 & 64 bit).

However, if you want to extend a volume by shrinking another one, Disk Management cannot help you, learn why.

How to decrease partition size in Windows 10:

1. Press Windows and X on the keyboard and select Disk Management from the list.
2. Right click the drive you want to decrease and select Shrink Volume.
3. Enter the amount of space (1024MB=1GB) and click Shrink to execute.

This drive will be shrunk within a short time in most cases.

Restrictions of Shrink Volume function:

1. Only NTFS partition can be shrank, FAT32 and other types of volumes are not supported.
2. Unallocated space can only be generated on the right side.
3. Sometimes you can only shrink little space because of some unmovable files are located, even though there is large amount of free space in this drive.

How to increase partition size in Windows 10:

Only when your disk drive configuration meet the requirements below, Extend Volume is workable to increase partition size.

1. There must be adjacent Unallocated space on the right side of the drive that you want to extend. If there’s no such Unallocated space, you must delete the right contiguous partition.
2. The drive that you want to extend must be formatted with NTFS, FAT32 and other types of partitions are not supported.
3. On MBR disk, the partitions to be deleted and extended must be the same Primary or Logical drive. Otherwise, you still cannot extend partition after deleting the right contiguous one.

To increase volume size with Disk Management:

1. Right click the NTFS partition that has right adjacent Unallocated space and select Extend Volume.
2. Simply click Next in the pop-up Extend Volume Wizard window.
3. Click Next to use default selected disk and space, or change manually.
4. Click Finish to execute.

Adjust partition size with partition editor

Comparing with Windows 10 Disk Management, NIUBI Partition Editor has advantages while resizing partition, for example:

• Both NTFS and FAT32 partitions are supported to shrink and extend.
• Unallocated space can be made on either left or right when shrinking a drive.
• Partitions can be extended via 1 step with adjacent Unallocated space on either side.
• Unallocated space can be moved and combined to any nonadjacent partition on the same disk.
• If there is not plenty of space in the same disk, NIUBI can copy to a larger one and extend partition with extra space.

How to change partition size in Windows 10 with NIUBI Partition Editor:

Download this program and you’ll see all disk partitions with structure and other information. In my test computer, there are drive C, D, E and system reserved partitions.

There are two options when decrease partition size, right click this partition (here is D:) and select «Resize/Move Volume».

Option 1: If you drag left border towards right in the pop-up window,

Then Unallocated space will be produced on the left side.

Option 2: If you drag right border towards left in the pop-up window,

Then Unallocated space will be produced on the right side.

These Unallocated space can be used to create new volume or combine to other partition.

To increase size of partition C:

Right click C and select «Resize/Move Volume» again, drag right border rightwards to combine Unallocated space.

To increase size of partition E:

Right click E and select «Resize/Move Volume» again, drag left border leftwards to combine Unallocated space.

If you want to decrease E to increase C, follow Option 1 to make Unallocated space on the left side of E. Before adding Unallocated space to C drive, there is an additional step to move Unallocated space to left side of D. To do this, right click drive D and select «Resize/Move Volume», drag middle position towards right in the pop-up window.

Take care of data while resizing disk partition

There is potential system and data damage risk while change partition size for Windows 10 computer. So you’d better back up first and use safe partitioning software. Better than other software, NIUBI Partition Editor provides powerful 1 Second Rollback, Virtual Mode and Cancel-at-well technologies to protect system and data.

Besides changing partition size, it helps you do many other operations such as: merge, convert, defrag, copy, hide, wipe and scan partition. Initialize, convert, set read-only attribute to disk, etc.

Freely and Easily Change Partition Size in Windows 10

You can easily change partition size in Windows 10 via Disk Management, Diskpart utility or a free and easy-to-use partition manger – AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.

By AOMEI / Last Updated October 16, 2019

Why change partition size in Windows 10?

As times goes, you might be unsatisfied with the current size of the hard drive partition and want to resize partition in Windows 10 under different situations:

A partition like Partition C (system drive) is allocated with small capacity and it is almost running out of space. To avoid the possible follow-up issues, you may want to extend the partition.

A partition is too large. It is possible that there is only one partition on your large hard drive. To manage data better, it’s wise to shrink the partition and create new partition with the unallocated space.

Whatever the reasons, you can find out a proper way to resize your partition in Windows 10 in the following content.

How to resize partition in Windows 10 (3 ways)?

Pick up one method about changing hard drive partition size in Windows 10 based on the specific condition.

Change partition size within Disk Management

Disk Management is a built-in tool in Windows 10, which is able to shrink/extend/create/delete/format partition. With this tool, you should shrink partition to gain unallocated space or extend the partition with contiguous unallocated space.

1. Press Windows + R, input “diskmgmt.msc” and hit Enter key to open Disk Management.

2. In Disk Management, right click the partition that you want to extend or shrink.

3. In the pop-up menu, choose Extend Volume or Shrink Volume and follow the wizard to complete the operation.

Notices:

Extend Volume will be greyed out if there is no adjacent unallocated space behind the partition that you want to extend.

You might be unable to shrink C drive out of unmovable files, even when it has free space.

Resize partition via Diskpart

It is also available to increase or decrease partition capacity via Diskpart utility. Here are detailed steps:

1. Press Windows + R simultaneously, input “diskpart” and click OK.

2. Type” list disk” and hit Enter.

3. Input “select disk n” and press Enter key. (n is the number that holds the partition that you want to resize.)

4. Run “list partition” command.

5. Run “select partition m” command. (m refers to the number of the disk that you need to extend or shrink.

To extend the partition, input “extend size = x” and press Enter (x is the size in MB that you want to add to the partition).

To shrink partition in Windows 10, input “shrink desired=x” and hit Enter (y is the size in MB that you want to shrink the partition by).

Note: To extend partition, please ensure that there exists a contiguous unallocated space behind the partition that going to be extended; otherwise, you can’t extend the partition.

Change partition size via a free yet powerful tool

When it is not available to get an unallocated space behind the partition that you are going to extend, it is time to employ a trusted and full-featured partition manager – AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, specially designed for Windows system. It can work under Windows 10/8.1/8/7, XP and Vista.

It allows you to extend partition with non-adjacent unallocated space without data loss via Merge Partitions function and enables you to shrink partition beyond its half size. Free download it and have a look at how it works.

Step 1. Install and run the software. Right click the partition (here is D drive)that you want to shrink and choose Resize Partition.

Step 2. In the pop-up window, drag leftward to shrink the partition. Then, click OK.

Step 3. Then, there will be an unallocated space on the hard drive. To extend C drive, right click it and choose Merge Partitions.

Step 4. Tick C drive and Unallocated. Then, click OK.

Step 5. Back to the main interface, click Apply and Proceed to execute operation.

PS.:

If the hard drive has unallocated space, you can skip Step 1 and Step 2.

You can upgrade AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard to Professional version and you can use more functions, such as allocating free space, quick partition, partition recovery, etc.

Conclusion

It’s easy to change partition size in Windows 10 and you can choose a proper way from what aforementioned. If your current hard disk is too small, it is not practical to fix partition full issue completely. You can choose to replace your current small disk with a larger one.

Resize Partition Windows 10: Use 3 Tools to Shrink/Extend Volume in Windows 10

This page introducesВ how to resize partition Windows 10 (32bit and 64bit) without losing any data. Follow to learnВ how to shrink volume as well as how to extend partition withВ unallocated spaceВ in Windows 10 on your own.

How Do I Resize Partition in Windows 10

Question 1 — «How can I change partition size in Windows?»

Question 2 — «How can I increase partition size without formatting in Windows 10?»

Question 3 — «How do I increase or shrink space in Windows 10?»

Resizing partition is a process to re-allocate the disk space in Windows PC so as to extend or shrink partitions, making full use of unallocated spaces on a hard drive or SSD. For example, when the C drive is out of space,В you need to resize another partition and add free space into C drive so as to fix this issue.

So how to resize partitions in Windows 10/8/7? In the next, we’ll take Windows 10 as an example to show you how to manage partition size, including shrink volume and extend partition in Windows 10/8/7.

3 Best Tools to Resize Partition in Windows 10

Here in this part, we’ll introduce two user-friendly and powerful partition management tools and one administrators’ favoriate tool to help you freely adjust the size of a drive partition.

Here are the 3 best tools that work to resize Windows 10 partitions for free:

These three Windows 10 partition resizing tool allows you to resize hard drive partitions under Windows 10 32 bit and 64 bit OS.В

If you are a Windows beginner or prefer an all-in-one tool that helps to extend and shrink volume for free in Windows 10, pick as EaseUS Partition Master Free as your best choice.

Comparision: EaseUS Partition Master vs. Disk Management vs. Diskpart

Both Disk Management and Diskpart are Windows built-in tools that work to shrink a disk volume, like the system C drive. But they are not as efficient as third-party partition manager software — EaseUS Partition Master.

Here is a brief comparison table that will help you to pick up the best partition management toolВ for resizing disk partitions in Windows 10/8/7:

в€љ (FAT Not Supported)

Resize Partition (from Head and End of a Partition)

Besides resizing partition, EaseUS Partition Master also supports some advanced disk management features that you may interest in. For example:

Now, you can pick up the desired tool and follow the specific tutorials to adjust your partition size in Windows 10.

How to Resize Windows 10 Partition with EaseUS Partition Master

Applies to: Extend system partition, create, delete, resize/move, copy, merge, split, or format partition in Windows 10/8/7.

EaseUS Partition Master is designed for Windows beginners who have no experience in managing disk space on all versions of Windows computers.

Step-by-step Guide to Resize Partition

Now, see the following steps to resize Windows 10 partition, including shrink volume and extend volume, with the EaseUS partition management tool for free:

Step 1: Locate the drive/partition

Select the drive/partition thatВ want to adjust its size and right-click on it to choose «Resize/Move».

Step 2: Resize or move the partition

1.To shrink the partition, simply drag one of its ends to free upВ unallocated space. Once done, click «OK».В

2. To extend the partition, make sure that there is unallocated space aside (if there isn’t, follow the above steps to create some). In the same way, drag your mouse into the unallocated space. Click «OK».

3. To move a partition position, you need to leave unallocated space next to the target partition. If no, free up some unallocated space first.

Right-click the target partition, select «Reize/Move». Then drag the whole partition left or right to adjust its position. Click «OK» to confirm.В

Step 3: Apply changes

At this step, you will see the new disk partition information & diagram.

To save changes, click the «Execute Operation» button and then «Apply».

Video Tutorial: Resize and Manage Partition in Windows 10

You can also follow this video tutorial to execute more operations in managing Windows 10 hard drive via EaseUS Partition Master.

How to Resize Partition in Windows 10 Using Disk Management

Applies to: Manually extend, shrink volumes, adjust partition size in Windows 10/8/7 for experienced users.

Windows 10 built-in Disk Management has the ability to shrink volume and extend volume. For experienced Windows users who know well how to use Disk Management, it’s easy to resize partitions in using this tool.

Here are the steps to just partition size in Disk Management:

Shrink Volume in Windows 10 Disk Management:

Step 1. Press Windows + X, select «Disk Management» from the list.

Step 2. Right-click the target partition and select «Shrink Volume».

Step 3. In the pop-up window, enter the amount of space and click «Shrink» to execute.

Extend Partition in Disk Management on Windows 10

Limit:В There must be unallocated space behind your target partition. If not, shrink one right next to your target volume.

Step 1. Press Windows + X, select «Disk Management» from the list.

Step 2. Right-click the target partition and select «Extend Volume».

Step 3. Click «Next» in the Extend Volume Wizard window.

Step 4. Adjust the space that you need to extend the target volume. Click «Finish» to confirm.

Then Windows 10 partition resizing operation is done. You can also repeat the process above to right-click a volume and select «Format», «Delete Volume», «Change Drive Letter and Paths. «, etc., to execute more operations on your Windows 10 partitions.

How to Shrink/Extend Volume Windows 10 with Diskpart

Applies to: Resize partitions, shrink or extend volume in Windows 10 among Windows administrators.

Windows Comand Prompt is usually not seen by most of our users unless they know how to access it. It’s an administrator tool for IT managers to adjust computer settings. It also works to adjust partition size, including extend or shrink partition, delete partition, format partition, and clean hard drive, etc.

If you’re willing to challenge yourself and try to shrink partitions using this way, here’s the full guide.

Shrink Volume using Diskpart in Windows 10

Step 1. Press Windows + R to bring up the Run box.

Step 2.Type diskpart and hit Enter.

Step 3. Type the following command lines and hit Enter each time:

• list volume. (Note the number of the volume you want to shrink.)
• select volume X («x» refers to the target volume number.)
• shrink desired

Step 4.Type exit to finish and close Diskpart.

Extend Volume in Windows 10 Using Diskpart

Limit: There must be enough unallocated space behind your target partition. If not, shrink one right next to your target volume.

Step 1. Press Windows + R to bring up the Run box.В

Step 2. Type diskpart and hit Enter.

Step 3. Type the following command lines and hit Enter each time:

• list volume. (Note the number of the volume you want to shrink.)
• select volume X(«x» refers to the target volume number.)
• extend size

Step 4.Type exitto close Diskpart.

Besides this, you can also apply Diskpart to format partitions, delete volumes, and even clean a whole hard drive with cmd lines.

The Bottom Line

On this page, we collected 3 best partition resizing tools for Windows 10/8/7 users to apply for disk partition management. Among the above three tools, EaseUS Partition Master is beginners’ best shot.

Disk Management is for experienced users. As for Diskpart, if you are not an administrator, we don’t recommend you to try it. It’s hard and not user-friendly. Any mistake may cause serious results.

If you have further questions in resizing Windows 10 partitions, check out the FAQs below.

People Also Ask — Windows 10 Resize Partition FAQs

1. Can Partition Magic resize Windows 10 partition?

Not anymore.В Partition MagicВ runs on Microsoft Windows 98, Me, NT, 2000, and XP, but Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, and Windows 10 are not supported by Norton Partition Magic.

2. What is shrinking a volume?

The shrink operation means the practice of trying to decrease the size of one hard drive partition to create unallocated space which you can use it for many purposes. You can add the unallocated space to the other partition which needs more space or simply create a new partition with a drive letter on the unallocated space.

3. Does shrinking a volume erase data?

As explained, shrinking the volume is to create unallocated space, but it won’t affect the existing data. No matter you are using the Disk Management, EaseUS Partition Master, or DiskPart command, basically no data loss will occur.В

4. Cannot shrink partition not enough space

If the disk volume you’re trying to shrink contains unmovable files and those unmovable files are happen to be in the middle of the hard disk, you are likely to receive this error.

5. Cannot shrink a volume beyond the point

When you shrink a partition, certain files like the paging file or shadow copy storage area cannot be automatically relocated, so you cannot decrease the allocated space beyond the point where the unmovable files are located.

Feature Comparison	EaseUS Partition Master	Disk Management	Diskpart Command
Extend Volume	в€љ	в€љ (FAT Not Supported)
Shrink Volume	в€љ	в€љ(FAT Not Supported)	в€љ (FAT Not Supported)
Resize Dynamic Volume	в€љ	в€љ(FAT Not Supported)	в€љ(FAT Not Supported)