Ram and (ssd) storage are two different things. Also, both of those numbers, 8 gb of ram and 256 gb of disk space, are pretty low these days.

Anyway, if you’re using the laptop with the software it came with, it might have a bunch of demo versions of useless apps put on for advertisement purposes. HP is (or at least used to be) notorious for this crap. Somewhere in the settings should be a page for apps that lists what’s installed, check there.