Microsoft admits a Windows 11 bug is eating up to 500GB of storage, verify if you are affected
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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\<br>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...