I Deleted 26GB of Files in Seconds. Windows Explorer Took Hours
Real-world test: same 26GB folder. Explorer: hours of calculating and copying to Recycle Bin. Speed Delete: seconds. Here's what the benchmarks actually mean.
I had a 26GB mix of old renders, caches, and project scraps. I wanted it gone. So I ran the same deletion two ways: Windows Explorer (Recycle Bin and Shift+Delete) and Speed Delete.
Windows Explorer
- With Recycle Bin: Explorer had to move 26GB to the Recycle Bin. That's a full copy before "deletion." On my machine it took over an hour.
- With Shift+Delete: Faster than Recycle Bin, but still slow. Explorer was "calculating time remaining" for minutes, then inched through. Total: about 45 minutes. UI was sluggish the whole time.
Speed Delete
- Same 26GB folder. Drag onto the app, confirm, click delete. Done in about 1–2 seconds. No Recycle Bin, no size calculation up front, no per-file UI updates.
Why the gap is so big
From the Speed Delete knowledge base and how Windows works:
| What Explorer does | What Speed Delete does |
|---|---|
| Calculates total size and count first | Direct filesystem API calls |
| Updates UI for many operations | Minimal UI overhead |
| Runs through shell extensions | Bypasses shell entirely |
| Recycle Bin or same slow pipeline | Skips Recycle Bin |
| Notifies indexing service | No indexing notifications |
So 26GB in seconds isn't magic—it's avoiding the pipeline that makes Explorer slow. The published benchmarks (e.g. 10GB in ~0.5s, 100GB in ~3s on NVMe) line up with that.
Bottom line
If you have tens of GB (or more) to delete regularly—dev caches, old backups, media—Explorer will cost you hours. The same job with Speed Delete is over in seconds. I deleted 26GB in seconds; Explorer had taken hours. Your mileage varies with drive speed, but the ratio doesn't.