On an average day many years ago, I found myself using Multi-Commander to look for a file I had just downloaded. It was at this time I noticed my C drive was showing less than 100 GB of free space on my 500 GB hard drive. What could possibly be taking that much space?
I could have performed a search manually through all the different folders. Right-click and display properties to see the size of the folder. I would have started with the obvious, which was my temp folders under my user. I didn’t have all year to take this approach, so I decided to use a simpler approach: WinDirStat.
What is WinDirStat?
WinDirStat is an application that stands for Windows Directory Statistics. It is a powerful tool in the long-standing battle for free space for drives. This tool allows the user to select the drive(s) to be processed and shows the space for each folder in real-time.
How To Use WinDirStat?
Usage of this tool is extremely simple.
1) Open the WinDirStat application.
2) Select the drives to be processed. Three options are available:
a. All Local Drive
b. Individual Drives
c. A Folder
3) Allow the application to do its magic.
That’s it, easy-peasy.
While the directories are being processed, little Pac-Man animations will be shown to show the directories that are currently being processed.
When completed, WinDirStat will display the folders as well as a Treemap of what was found. The Treemap can be a bit intimidating with the in-depth analysis display.
To quote the WinDirStat website:
"The treemap represents each file as a colored rectangle, the area of which is proportional to the file's size. The rectangles are arranged in such a way, that directories again make up rectangles, which contain all their files and subdirectories. So their area is proportional to the size of the subtrees. The color of a rectangle indicates the type of the file, as shown in the extension list. The cushion shading additionally brings out the directory structure."
From this window, the user can see the folders that are taking the most space. In my case, the AppData folder uses the most space, with the Local folder being the primary culprit.
I can drill down even further and determine Microsoft Edge Dev is using 20.6 GB of space.
Alternatives
Though I consider WinDirStat to be my go-to tool for analyzing the space usage for my drives, there are a variety of alternatives. I could spend a few hours listing the different alternatives. Because everyone's time is valuable, and attention spans are limited, I will provide a TL;DR listing of alternatives.
TreeSize
TreeSize comes in three different flavors:
- Free
- Personal
- Professional
WizTree
Of all the alternatives to WinDirStat, WizTree seems to be the most favored (IMHO). WizTree is extremely fast in its analysis with a user-friendly interface.
WizTree comes in three flavors:
- Personal Use
- Small-Medium Organizations (from 1 to 100 Employees)
- Large Organizations (Unlimited Use)
Windows' Built-In Storage Usage Tool
What list of alternatives would be complete without the mention of a tool baked into Windows itself. That's right, Windows 10/11 has its very own analysis tool.
Under Settings⇾System⇾Storage, Windows has the ability to analyze the drive and provide information related to the different folders and files. The data is displayed in a very basic manner, allowing the user to filter down into each folder.
And the list goes on…
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