Windows 11 bug wipes out 500GB of storage space

A storage bug in Microsoft Windows 11 could wipe out 500GB of storage space. Microsoft customer support even suggested buying a new hard drive instead of acknowledging the problem.
We've heard that Copilot eats up storage space on Windows machines, appears in applications which it has nothing to do with and generally annoys those who prefer a computer without AI. Now, we have a Windows log file showing the disappearance of space on users' storage drives, and a Microsoft customer support representative suggesting the purchase of a new hard drive.

What happened;

The file responsible for this is CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal . This is a write-ahead log of the database that Windows uses to track camera, microphone, and location permission requests. Normally, it is supposed to stay at a few megabytes in size and clean itself up after about a month. What actually happened is that the file continued to grow, exceeding 500GB. The log file is actually located in a folder that Windows won't even let you open.

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The user who ignored the advice to replace the hard drive was Donald Gibson, who posted his problem on the Microsoft Q&A forum in March 2026. His storage space in the System and Reserved category had reached 111GB, while it should have been around 40GB, all because of CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal which had reached 66,5GB and was eating up valuable space on his 221GB disk.

When he contacted Microsoft support, the technician had never heard of this error before and had to consult a supervisor before responding. The result was a suggestion to buy a new portable hard drive and no help in deleting the bloated file.

This isn't something new that's been popping up in recent months. A Reddit thread reported that the same file had grown to 513GB on someone else's machine, with no indication anywhere of where the space went.

A silent correction

The official fix appeared on June 29. It was in the release notes in the “Change log” section for a preview update that the company released.

However, not everyone will have it right now, as full availability is expected with the July 2026 Patch Tuesday update, a year after the first reports.

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Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.