How to Debloat Windows 11: Reduce Processes & Free Up RAM

This is my freshly installed Windows 11 system and before changing anything task manager is already showing around 157

processes running in the background. Memory usage is also sitting at roughly 5.5 GB on this 16 GB system.

Now compare that with the result after cleaning up Windows. The number of processes drops to around 138 and the

memory usage comes down to about 3.5 GB. There is also fewer unnecessary apps, suggestions, background features, and

other things running inside Windows. So in this video, I'll show you how to debloat Windows 11 and make the system

much cleaner and lighter. First, open your browser and search for Windows 11 debloat GitHub.

Open the Rafael Win 11 debloat GitHub project. Scroll down until you find the quick

method. Here you'll see a partial command that can automatically download and launch

the tool. Copy the command. Now open Windows search and type

PowerShell. Run Windows PowerShell as administrator. Paste the command into PowerShell and

press enter. The script will now download Win 11 debloat. You don't need to manually

install anything. Once Win 11 debloat opens, the first thing it asks is which Windows user you

want to modify. For a normal setup like this, leave it on current user. You'll now see two options, default mode

and custom setup. I'm going with custom setup because this gives us control over exactly what gets removed or changed.

The first section is app removal. Windows usually comes with quite a few apps that you may never use. From here,

you can choose which ones you want to remove. The tool also uses different colors to make this easier.

Green apps are generally recommended for removal. Yellow items are optional, so check them carefully.

Red items are not recommended to remove. For example, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Store, Windows Terminal, etc. are marked

red here. I'm keeping these apps because removing something important like those can make it much harder to restore

later. Go through the list and select only the apps you actually don't need.

In my case, I'm also removing some manufacturer software and other unnecessary apps that are installed on

this computer. Don't copy every app I select here because some of them may be apps you

still use regularly. Once you've selected everything you don't need, click next.

Now we have the system tweak section. This is where most of the additional Windows cleanup can be done.

Under privacy and suggested content, I'm disabling telemetry, tracking, targeted ads, tips, suggested content, location

access, find my device location tracking, lock screen suggestions, edge suggestions, and Microsoft 365 Copilot

advertisements inside settings. Most of these are mainly privacy and cleanup changes rather than huge

performance tweaks, but they help reduce unnecessary Windows features and make the system less cluttered.

Now move to the system section. Here, I'm selecting disable drag tray because I don't need the extra drag and

drop sharing into this. Next, enable the classic Windows 10 context menu. This brings back the full

traditional right-click menu instead of making you open show more options every time.

I'll also select disable sticky keys keyboard shortcut. Finally, I'm selecting disable BitLocker

automatic device encryption. This stops Windows from automatically enabling device encryption. But keep in mind that

BitLocker is a security feature, so if you use it to protect your file, leave this option unchecked.

Next is the Windows update section. Here, I'm selecting prevent automatic restarts after updates while signed in.

This helps stop Windows from restarting the computer unexpectedly while you're still working.

I'm also selecting prevent Windows from auto installing device companion apps. This can help stop Windows from

automatically adding extra companion software for connected devices. Next is the AI section. Here, I'm

disabling Microsoft Copilot, Windows Recall, Click to Do, the automatic AI service, and AI features inside Edge,

Paint, and Notepad. If you actually use any of these features, don't disable them. You can

simply leave those options unchecked. Now, move to the appearance section. I'm keeping enabled dark theme for

system and app selected. I'm also selecting disable transparency effects and disable animations and visual

effects. These remove some of the extra visual effects used by Windows, which can make

the interface feel a little faster and more responsive, especially on lower-end computers.

Now, move to File Explorer. I'm enabling show file extensions for known file types. This makes extensions

like EXE, ZIP, JPG, and TXT visible. It's useful because you can immediately see the actual file type, and it can

also make suspicious files easier to identify. I'm also hiding OneDrive from the File

Explorer navigation pane. Under multitasking, I'm disabling Windows snapping, the app suggestions

that appear while snapping windows, and the snap layout flyout. Now, move on to the start menu and

search. I'm removing the pinned apps for all users.

Then, I'm disabling phone link integration in the start menu, Bing web search and Copilot integration in

search, and Microsoft Store app suggestions in search. These options mainly help clean up Windows search on

the start menu. Now, under the taskbar section, I'm enabling show end task option in taskbar

context menu. This is actually a very useful feature because it lets you end a stuck application directly from the

taskbar without opening task manager first. I'm also selecting disable widgets on

the taskbar and lock screen. If you don't use Windows widgets, this removes another unnecessary feature and keeps

the taskbar cleaner. Now, under gaming, I'm disabling Xbox game or screen recording and game bar

integration. If you use Xbox game bar for recording games or capturing your screen, keep this enabled. But, if you

never use them, you can disable them here. Finally, under other, I'm hiding the

settings home page. There's also an option to disable extra bloat inside the Brave browser.

Only select this if you actually use Brave. Once everything looks good, click next.

This brings us to deployment settings. Before applying anything, I strongly recommend keeping create a registry

backup enabled. Also, keep create a system restore point enabled. These are important because we

are changing a lot of Windows settings at once. If something doesn't work the way you expect, having a backup and

restore point gives you a much easier way to recover. You can also choose whether apps should

be removed only for the current user or for all users. On this system, I'm removing them for

all users. Once you're ready, click apply changes. Win 11 Debloat will now remove the

selected apps and apply all the tweaks we chose. Just wait for the process to finish.

When you see changes applied, the tool has finished. Some changes will only take effect after

a reboot. So, close the tool and restart Windows. After Windows starts again, let's check

the task manager again and compare the results. Before doing the cleanup, the computer

had around 157 processes running and was using roughly 5.5 GB of RAM. After the cleanup, I'm seeing around 138

processes. Memory usage has also dropped to about 3.5 GB and CPU usage is sitting very low while the system is idle.

Your numbers will obviously be different depending on your hardware, Windows version, installed apps, and which

options you choose. Also, remember that removing more things does not automatically mean better

performance. Some of these tweaks are mainly for privacy or cleaning up the Windows

interface. The best approach is to remove features you genuinely don't use while keeping anything important to your

workflow.