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How can I visualize which folders and files are taking up all of the space on my hard drive?

I'm getting some conflicting reports on the size of hard drive contents. Namely what is and isn't there and what folders are actually using the space.


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Right-click and go to properties. The folder size will be calculated when that request is done. Like surfasb said, performance is probably the major reason that this isn't show anymore. –  Terry Mar 12 '12 at 13:26

19 Answers 19

WinDirStat is a port of KDirStat for Linux. It's lightweight, small (650kb installer), fast, portable (as a standalone .exe file), and works on multiple versions of Windows. Besides showing folders and percentages (for the entire disk or any subset of folders), it also displays an (optional) graphical usage map. Works well with NTFS Junction folders, avoiding counting folders multiple times.

WinDirStat screenshot

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Seems to be based on an earlier college project SequioaView (w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/onderzoek_informatica/visualization/…). I suspect both are derivative. –  pcapademic Jul 19 '09 at 22:39
I love WinDirStat, and the fact it's a small standalone .exe makes it even nicer. –  Dentrasi Aug 29 '09 at 17:19
If only they could do something about those rather ugly shiny boxes at the bottom :S –  Svish Apr 22 '10 at 14:32
+1 because it understands NTFS Junction folders so some directories are not counted multiple times. –  Agent_9191 Aug 25 '10 at 16:41
@Svish : I know it's been a while since you posted, but you can adjust WinDirStat's settings to change the look of the ugly boxes at the bottom to something that better suits your tastes. –  evilspoons Jan 3 '12 at 15:31

SpaceSniffer is another possibility. It can scan Alternate Data Streams (ADS) and correctly ignores junctions. However, it is not hard-link aware. If a file has multiple links, they will show up in the scan more than once. I've personally tested all this information to be accurate on Windows XP as of version

SpaceSniffer Screenshot

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+1 For me it's an improvement over WinDirStat and SpaceMonger... This one also shows live changes! ;-) –  Tom Wijsman Mar 23 '11 at 15:50

JDiskReport (also available for Mac OS X and Linux).

enter image description here

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Amen, I've tried many apps in this genre, and most add so many bells and whistles that it's just distracting. I adore JDiskReport, it makes everything so easy. –  username Jul 22 '09 at 17:55
It's a great app, but it doesn't account for Junction folders in NTFS so the total size may be calculated as larger than it really is. –  Agent_9191 Aug 25 '10 at 16:36

I've always used, and liked, SpaceMonger. There is a paid-for newer version, but the old version works fine for my needs.

SpaceMonger screenshot

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+1 I heard about this program years ago now in a Maximum PC issue. I STILL use it. It's the best visualizer for me, in my opinion. Other visualizers either try to be too 'cool' or I don't know but they seem convoluted. –  Jorge Israel Peña Jul 18 '09 at 23:38
The only problem with SpaceMonger (at least the older freeware version) is that it ignores Unicode filenames. It just skips right over them and doesn't include the file at all. WinDirStat at least handles those correctly. I don't know about newer versions of SpaceMonger. –  afrazier Apr 20 '10 at 13:28

I like FolderSize, since it's integrated into Explorer and caches the results. You always know how much space a folder is taking, and can easily identify space hogs. It's always there, so you don't have to start a separate program.

FolderSize screenshot

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It looks nice but it's not for Windows Vista or Windows 7 –  Jonas Feb 27 '11 at 17:35

I tend to stick with Scanner. I occasionally try programs with more features, but I find Scanner does everything I actually need.


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I'd recommend Disk Space Fan. It has a similar UI to Scanner or Overdisk, but looks more fashionable.

Disk Space Fan screenshot

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Note: It's not free –  Sawny Nov 20 '12 at 19:17

It's old, but I really like the tree map view in SequoiaView.

SequoiaView is free and happily works all the way up to Windows 7 and Server 2008.

SequoiaView screenshot

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With Sysinternal suite, you have du.
I like it, because it is command-line, very lean and fast. And it is free :-)

C:\>du somedir

Du v1.33 - report directory disk usage
Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Files:        28618
Directories:  2625
Size:         671,672,063 bytes
Size on disk: 671,672,063 bytes

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du is also hardlink-aware, with the -u parameter. With that, it can show you the count of actual files on disk and their size if there are any hardlinked files. –  afrazier Jan 5 '11 at 15:42
lol... windows becomes more and more POSIX compatible every day... oh my! –  SnakeDoc Mar 13 '13 at 21:45

The older edition of SpaceMonger is minimalist and functional.

alt text

While WinDirStat shows a similar view, I prefer the higher contrast, visiblity of SpaceMonger when I want to quickly view the state of my drive.

alt text

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DiskView is very handy. It has both the pie chart visualization as well as usage bars on the folder tree. It's integrated directly into Windows Explorer.

enter image description here

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There are many possibilities, but in my opinion the bests programs to show file system usage are: WinDirstat, Scanner, Xinorbis and SpaceSniffer.







JDiskReport (requires java)



Disk Space Fan

not free




not found



Overdisk alternatives

How can I visualize the file system usage on Windows?

Herramientas para analizar el espacio en disco

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SizeReporter is a tool I wrote that comes with no GUI. The main trigger for creating this tool was to have a way to run a disk space reporting application under a service and get raw data only. Further processing and own reporting/diagramming can then be done in a custom way by using other Software. I was amazed that for Windows I could not find anything free that actually fit my needs.

The tool is not actually really spectacular but can deal with many quirks and issues on filesystems (bad timestamps, very long paths, junctions, ...). "du" (sysinternals) was the tool I used in the past but delivers only a summary.

I hope this can also be useful to others.

SizeReporter download page

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Folder Size's documentation says that cannot be done because API has been removed since Windows Vista.

There are few standalone apps exists for folder size checking, like TreeSize Free.

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For the record: this answer was merged from a different question (by moderator?). –  Mengdi Gao Jun 23 '12 at 4:36


Shows everything visually. Very very nice.


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I've recently found another (rather unimaginative title) FolderSize software from MindGems:

enter image description here

There are freeware and portable versions here.

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I see WinDirStat has been given a few mentions already - so I'll just throw ShowMan into the mix.

I like the display of ShowMan better than WinDirStat, as it's cleaner to look at. However - ShowMan is not free for commercial use (and for that reason, I have been using WinDirStat more recently).

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protected by Nifle Jun 22 '12 at 11:49


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