Geeks and laypeople unite, it’s National Clean Out Your Computer Day! This February 11, give your most-used devices some TLC. This holiday falls on the second Monday in February – the perfect time to get some real organizing done if you’ve already given up on your New Year’s resolutions.
Plus, don’t forget about cleaning the outside of your devices. A group of moms actually came up with this screen cleaner — free of harmful chemicals.
National Clean Out Your Computer Day timeline
- 2000
National Clean Out Your Computer Day is Born
The Institute of Business Technology names the second Monday in February National Clean Out Your Computer Day.
- 1997
File Sharing Takes Off
Before Napster, Limewire, or torrenting websites there was MP3.com, which peaked at 4 million audio downloads a day.
- 1994
PCs Invade Homes
Following IBM's PC, the market for inexpensive home PCs expands rapidly. 11 million American homes now have computers.
- August 12, 1981
IBM Launches the Personal Computer
IBM coins the term with the release of its IBM Personal Computer, weighing 21 pounds.
- 1971
The "Creeper" Crawls Out
The Creeper, the first computer bug, is written as an experiment.
How to Observe National Clean Out Your Computer Day
Break it off with your EXEs
Your update installation .EXEs files, that is. Use the disk utility tool for Macs or disk cleanup for Windows to see what's taking up space on your hard drive then easily delete junk from your downloads folder, temporary internet files, and old programs you don't use.
Back, back, back it up
Hopefully you don't wait for National Clean Out Your Computer Day to backup your data. Whether you make a copy of your data on an external hard drive or in the cloud, today's an especially good day to preserve your computer's information.
Vaccinate against malware
Not only should you do a full scan with your antivirus software, but you should also clear out any suspicious messages in your inbox. Set up filters to catch spam messages more effectively – viruses love email.
Why National Clean Out Your Computer Day is Important
It keeps us organized
Be honest: do you save everything to your desktop or downloads folder? National Clean Out Your Computer Day is the time to get those random documents into folders by subject, making everything easier to find and saving you precious time.
It makes our computers faster
Deleting unnecessary files, uninstalling unused applications, and managing the applications that run on start-up are just a couple techniques that will make your computer run like a cheetah again.
It saves us from getting hacked
You should have an antivirus program running at all times, but a full system scan in honor of National Clean Out Your Computer Day is the best way to double check for anything that’s slipped through.
National Clean Out Your Computer Day dates
| Year | Date | Day |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | February 11 | Tuesday |
| 2021 | February 11 | Thursday |
| 2022 | February 11 | Friday |
| 2023 | February 11 | Saturday |
| 2024 | February 11 | Sunday |