CHARLOTTE, N.C. — As you probably already know, every day is a national "something" day, like this past weekend saw National Pizza Day, and this upcoming weekend features the aptly named Single Awareness Day.
Well, Monday is a national day for something you probably can't live without. It's National Clean Out Your computer Day, a time we set aside for our tech devices and perhaps discover the real reason they may be moving so slowly.
"This day is about taking control of, not just with your computers, but with your phones, too, because we use them just the way we use our computers," said Lifewire.com Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff.
Taking control on this day means cleaning out what should've been cleaned out years ago.
"For most folks, it's going to be multimedia files," said Nicholas De Leon, senior tech report for Consumer Reporters. "Photos, videos, maybe old mp3s that you downloaded in the day."
These files are usually memorable, just not currently meaningful.
"If you have a computer and you use it for everything, stuff will just accumulate in folders all over the place," said De Leon.
Folders of not just videos, photos and music, but documents and downloads.
"People download a lot of stuff off the internet and it just sits there in this one big folder," said Ulanoff. "Taking up enormous amounts of space."
Getting rid doesn't necessarily mean deleting forever. Just move the files to an external hard drive, or one of those USB storage sticks.
"There's a little shortcut on the USB stick and you double click on that and then it launches and it'll find all your photos and then copy them to the USB stick," said Adam Oman with The PhotoStick.
And when you're all done cleaning up, don't forget to empty the recycle or trash bin on your computer.
