what is taking up storage

there used to be utilities that were available to recursively scan the file system to generate a report of they size of each directory and sub-directory. Is such a thing built into File Manager or is there a utility that others can suggest. I suppose I could open up a CMD window and use Dir with the appropriate flags and I will resort to that – but wondering if I am missing an easier way to achieve the same information

Conversation 13 comments

  • jmwoods301

    25 February, 2020 - 9:06 pm

    <p>The old standby WinDirStat will give you that view.</p><p><br></p><p>I personally use a tool called FolderSize.</p><p><br></p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      26 February, 2020 - 8:34 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#523098">In reply to jmwoods301:</a></em></blockquote><p>This is something I need to look into again. WinDirStat is what I've used, but it's not exactly attractive. </p>

      • simard57

        27 February, 2020 - 10:36 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#523167">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>how about developing a sample utility in your next programming series..</p>

      • hrlngrv

        Premium Member
        28 February, 2020 - 12:54 am

        <p><a href="https://www.thurrott.com/forums/microsoft/windows/thread/what-is-taking-up-storage#523167&quot; target="_blank"><em>In reply to paul-thurrott:</em></a></p><p>There's always GNU du in a console.</p>

      • jmwoods301

        28 February, 2020 - 1:17 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#523167">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>The Folder Size tool I use is from Mindgems.</p><p><br></p><p>There is something else by the same name on Sourceforge.</p>

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    26 February, 2020 - 12:12 am

    <p>The Disk Cleanup Tool you can access from the properties window for drives should indicate how much storage could be freed up by removing probably unneeded cruft and dross.</p>

  • simont

    Premium Member
    26 February, 2020 - 7:45 am

    <p>TreeSize from Jam Software has a nice graphical interface.</p>

  • anoldamigauser

    Premium Member
    28 February, 2020 - 8:37 am

    <p>Just search for "Powershell find large files". You will find many examples that should do the trick. This will give you the 10 largest, size is listed in bytes though:</p><p>Get-ChildItem c:\ -r| sort -descending -property length | select -first 10 name, Length</p><p><br></p>

  • karlinhigh

    Premium Member
    28 February, 2020 - 10:05 am

    <p>My favorite is SpaceSniffer, from uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/index.html</p>

  • dftf

    28 February, 2020 - 2:51 pm

    <p>SearchMyFiles by Nir Sofer is a tiny free app (about 350KB for the 64-bit version).</p><p><br></p><p>(1) Set "search mode" to "summary"</p><p>(2) In Base Folders, choose the folder to start scanning from (e.g. C: for the entire drive — make sure you run the app as admin if you want it to access most folders)</p><p>(3) Leave all other fields blank</p><p>(4) Make sure "find files" is ticked</p><p>(5) Untick "stop the search after finding" at the bottom</p><p>(6) Click "start search"</p><p><br></p><p>It will give you a summary of the total size of each folder. You can save the results (do a Control + A to select the entire list) as a .TXT, .CSV or .HTML file. If you want the sizes to look more user-friendly (e.g. KB, MB or GB, as appropriate to the folder size), in the main window go to Options then "Summary File Size Unit" and choose Automatic. Or if you have a preference (e.g. KB) pick that and all sizes will be shown as that value.</p><p><br></p>

  • monkey butler

    02 March, 2020 - 8:17 am

    <p>Treesize is pretty good, and even in the Windows Store! </p>

  • PanamaVet

    02 March, 2020 - 11:18 am

    <p>GetFoldersize</p>

  • wunderbar

    Premium Member
    02 March, 2020 - 12:41 pm

    <p>WinDirStat remains my tool of choice.</p>

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