Can I delete memory.dmp?

Yes. It is only a crash snapshot. Use Disk Cleanup's 'System error memory dump files' option so a locked file is handled cleanly.

Why do I keep getting .dmp files?

Something is crashing repeatedly — a faulty driver or app. Read the dump with BlueScreenView to find the culprit.

How big should a .dmp be?

Minidumps are a few hundred KB; a full memory.dmp can be as large as your RAM.

What program reads a .dmp crash dump?

WinDbg with Microsoft symbols for full analysis, or BlueScreenView for a quick read of blue-screen minidumps.

What Is a .DMP File? (Windows crash dump)

You found a big .dmp file (maybe memory.dmp) eating gigabytes of disk. It is a crash dump Windows saved after a failure. Here is what it holds and how to clear it safely.

Short answer: A .dmp file is a memory dump — a snapshot Windows or an app wrote the moment it crashed or hit a blue screen. It is a diagnostic file, not your data, and is safe to delete to free space unless you are actively debugging the crash.

What a DMP file is

A .dmp file is a memory dump — a snapshot of what was in memory at the moment a program crashed or Windows hit a blue screen. Developers and the Windows debugger read it to find the cause. The system one, C:\Windows\memory.dmp, can be huge; smaller minidump files (a few hundred KB) live in C:\Windows\Minidump.

Where they come from

A kernel crash (BSOD) writes a full or kernel dump. Individual app crashes drop .dmp files too, often in your %LocalAppData%\CrashDumps folder. One or two is normal; a pile of them means something is crashing repeatedly.

Is it safe to delete?

Yes, unless you plan to have someone diagnose the crash. Deleting a .dmp only removes the diagnostic snapshot — it does not affect Windows or your files. Use Disk Cleanup (tick System error memory dump files) rather than deleting memory.dmp by hand, since it may be locked.

How to read one

If you want the cause, open the dump with the free WinDbg tool or a viewer like BlueScreenView, which lists the driver that likely triggered the crash.

How to open a .dmp file by OS

Windows: install WinDbg (from the Microsoft Store or Windows SDK), open the .dmp, and run !analyze -v to see the faulting driver or module. For blue-screen minidumps, the free BlueScreenView reads C:\Windows\Minidump and names the culprit driver in seconds.

macOS / Linux: a Windows .dmp won't open natively; copy it to a Windows machine or a VM with WinDbg. (App core dumps on Linux use gdb, not this format.)

Common problems

WinDbg needs the Microsoft symbol server to be useful — set _NT_SYMBOL_PATH to srv*https://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols. A pile of new .dmp files usually points to one recurring crash; note the repeating module name.

What Is a .DMP File?