If you’ve got a gut feeling that something is using your storage on Windows 11 and it’s not your random downloads, I recommend opening Settings > Storage > Show more categories > System & Reserved, then checking System storage.
On one of my PCs, the entire CapabilityAccessManager folder was under 4MB, and the CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal file was about 1.6MB, which is normal.
“[Storage] This update improves disk space usage for the CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal file,” Microsoft noted in the release notes of Windows 11 KB5095093 (June 2026 optional update).
Then, on June 29, it was quietly updated with a short note confirming disk space usage improvement for the CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal file.
Windows Latest understands that a Windows 11 update released in February or March 2026 caused the issue, and that some users are more affected than others depending on the apps they use.
If you’ve got a gut feeling that something is using your storage on Windows 11 and it’s not your random downloads, I recommend opening Settings > Storage > Show more categories > System & Reserved, then checking System storage. If it’s using hundreds of gigabytes of storage, it’s most likely due to a recent bug where a file linked to Capability Access Manager continues to fill the system drive until it runs out of storage.
If your PC is affected, the safest fix is to install Windows 11 KB5095093 from Windows Update, or wait for the July 2026 Patch Tuesday update, where the fix is expected to roll out automatically
In our tests, Windows Latest found that one particular file called “CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal” can use most of your system storage.
This file can be found in the following directory,
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\CapabilityAccessManager\
Note that this folder is protected by Windows, so File Explorer or PowerShell may show “Access denied” when you try to open it directly.
I don’t recommend changing ownership or permissions just to confirm if it’s using the storage. Instead, you can check the file size safely using a read-only command, which is explained later in the article.
It’s also worth noting that not all users are affected, and you can easily verify that by going to Settings > Storage > Show more categories > System & Reserved, and checking System files utilization. If it’s in hundreds of gigabytes, you’re most likely affected.
What is Capability Access Manager in Windows 11?
Capability Access Manager is tied to app permissions for features such as the microphone, location, camera, and screen capture. It could also be used by other related privacy features in Windows 11, and it’s essentially a logging system that helps you keep track of apps.
Technically, CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal is not the main database itself. It is the write-ahead log for the Capability Access Manager database. Windows uses this database to track app capability and privacy-related access, such as camera, microphone, location, and screen capture activity.
A WAL file can grow temporarily, but it should not sit at 50GB, 100GB, 200GB, or more. On one of my PCs, the entire CapabilityAccessManager folder was under 4MB, and the CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal file was about 1.6MB, which is normal.
But judging by the reports and our tests, this file can grow out of control and silently eat storage until the C: drive is full.
Why is Capability Access Manager (CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal) using an unexpected amount of storage?
Microsoft hasn’t published a postmortem report, but Windows Latest understands that CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal is growing because the OS keeps logging repeated events for access requests or other privacy controls, such as location.
This isn’t necessarily bad, as the whole point of the feature is to log everything, but it appears that the WAL file is not being merged/compacted back into the main SQLite database properly.
As a result, CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal can use tens or hundreds of gigabytes. 500GB is the highest value we have seen in reports.
Users report CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal growing to 200GB, 500GB, and more.
In a Feedback Hub post, one user flagged that CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal had grown to around 200GB on their system.
I also found a thread on Reddit’s r/techsupport where one user flagged an even worse case, saying TreeSize showed the same file using about 513GB, while pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys together were only around 29GB.
Other comments in the same thread mention 70GB, 110GB, 200GB, and the file returning to 4GB or 15GB after cleanup on some machines.
The issue was first reported by users earlier this year, and it was also flagged by Windows Insiders over the past few months.
Microsoft confirms it made an improved CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal to reduce storage utilization
Microsoft never officially acknowledged the problem until June 29, when it shipped a fix in the June 2026 optional update.
“[Storage] This update improves disk space usage for the CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal file,” Microsoft noted in the release notes of Windows 11 KB5095093 (June 2026 optional update). Or you can also wait for the July 2026 Patch Tuesday update, where the same fix is set to roll out automatically.
However, this is still not a full public explanation of the problem. Microsoft has not listed it as a known issue on Windows Dashboard, has not described the symptoms, and has not explained why some Windows 11 systems allowed this file to grow into tens or hundreds of gigabytes.
The problem is that Microsoft’s release note does not explain the scale of the bug or help users connect it to the “System & reserved” storage number shown in Settings.
Then, on June 29, it was quietly updated with a short note confirming disk space usage improvement for the CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal file.
As of writing, Microsoft’s known issues page still does not appear to explain this as a user-facing storage problem, even though the fix is now listed in the KB5095093 release notes.
In fact, you wouldn’t realize you are affected until you manually check the file storage, as Windows Storage shows the usage under “System files” in “System & reserved,” but does not directly show the real file causing the problem.
How to check if your PC is affected by Windows 11 storage bug
I personally observed this problem when I opened Settings > Storage > Show more categories System & Reserved > System files and noticed that it was using a massive 89GB of my storage. In the screenshot above, we have approx. 115GB of storage used by system files, but it does not tell us which files those are.
It did not make sense because I had recently performed a clean install of the operating system. My virtual storage for apps was quite low (29GB), and I do not use hibernation, so even that did not justify the problem. After Microsoft updated the release notes, we finally realized that the problem is due to CapabilityAccessManager.
So unless you have read this article, there’s no easy way to realize that CapabilityAccessManager is at fault.
Once you’ve figured out that it may be CapabilityAccessManager, you can use WizTree, TreeSize, or WinDirStat as administrator, sort files by size, and hunt down the database file that’s using most of your system storage.
But my personal recommendation is to run a simple command in Command Prompt (elevated) without changing permissions:
robocopy "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\CapabilityAccessManager" "%TEMP%\CAMCheck" /L /B /R:0 /W:0 /BYTES /NP
Before you run the above or any command, you should always know what it’s doing. In this case, we’re using robocopy, a Windows file-copy tool, to list file details in the source folder “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\CapabilityAccessManager.”
/L means list only, B is backup mode, which allows Robocopy to read protected system files without changing permissions, R:0 means do not retry when access is blocked, and W:0 instructs Robocopy not to wait between retries. Also, we have “%TEMP%\CAMCheck” as the dummy destination folder, so nothing is copied because /L is used.
Some of you might argue that Robocopy is unnecessary for checking file size, and I do not disagree, but we’re using Robocopy because this folder is protected, and PowerShell or File Explorer can return an “Access is denied” error even when the file exists. You’ll need to obtain permission to access the system files, even if you want to check storage utilization.
Now, look for CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal. If it is a few MB, as shown in the screenshot below, you are fine. On one unaffected system we checked, the whole CapabilityAccessManager folder was under 4MB, and the CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal file was about 1.6MB.
If the file is several GB or keeps growing every few minutes, your PC is likely affected.
As I mentioned at the outset, you can install Windows 11 KB5095093 if your System Files are using all of your storage, or wait for the July Patch Tuesday update if you still have enough free space.
If your drive is already full and Windows Update cannot install, the recovery workaround is to rename the oversized CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal file from Windows Recovery Environment or Safe Mode, then let Windows regenerate a fresh WAL file. I would not recommend casually deleting system files from an active Windows installation.
Windows Latest understands that a Windows 11 update released in February or March 2026 caused the issue, and that some users are more affected than others depending on the apps they use.
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