Sometimes, no matter how cautiously you use your computer’s storage, the storage space never seems enough. As you download new wallpapers, install games and programs, and transfer photos from your digital camera, more and more storage space is consumed. With so much happening every day, it becomes difficult to track what’s eating up your system’s storage.
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Thankfully, there are tools (many of which are free!) that simplify your task. They analyze your computer and show a detailed report of what’s eating up your Windows 11 storage. Using a disk space visualizer program, you will get a glimpse of specific directories that contain large files and export the list of such directories to a CSV or PDF file. You can also dig deeper to understand what file types (extensions) take up the most (for example, .rar, .iso, etc).
1. TreeSize
Pricing: Freemium (Free plan available)
TreeSize can help you figure out what’s taking up most of your storage. The free plan is adequate for an average home user.
Once you start scanning your hard drive, TreeSize starts showing up results in real-time, allowing you to view them even before the scan is concluded.
TreeSize shows expandable nodes that show up folder names, size, total number of files, total number of sub-folders, % storage consumed, and last modified date. Folders that eat up most of your storage are placed at the top. As you scroll down, folders with lower size are viewable. Command-lines are not available in the free plan.
2. JDiskReport
Pricing: Freeware
JDiskReport is another tool with a simple and clutter-free interface. It is beginner-friendly and provides comprehensive results with five perspectives.
You can choose among bar graphs, pie charts, list view to get a glimpse of your disk usage. Unfortunately, there’s no way to directly delete a file straight from the program. JDiskReport is multi-platform software available for not just Windows but also Linux and Mac.
3. Folder Size
Pricing: Freeware
Folder Size provides a unique integration with Windows Explorer. You can sort folders by their sizes. Folder Size opens each result into a separate window, rather than the original window.
Folder Size does not support charting features and lacks advanced folder filtering features.
4. Disk Savvy
Pricing: Freemium (Free plan available)
Disk Savvy has a nice interface with toolbars and separate panels that show up profiles, directories, folders and files inside a single window.
Disk Savvy provides advanced filtering features. Command-line arguments are not supported in the free plan. You can categorize folders using creation/ modification dates, file type (extension), user name and other parameters.
5. Folder Size Explorer
Pricing: Freeware
Folder Size Explorer (previously known as GetFolderSize) is another handy app. It offers excellent backward compatibility up to Windows XP (32-bit/ 64-bit).
Folder Size Explorer differs from other tools because not only it shows the folder size information, but also calculates hashes of files on your computer. You can view the MD5, SHA1, SHA256 checksums alongside your files. You can also export the results to a .CSV file.
6. HDGraph
Pricing: Freeware
HDGraph shows a circular ring based chart that moves from the largest data in the middle moving. It is also possible to click on a section to view detailed information.
7. WizTree
Pricing: Free for personal use
WizTree is comparatively faster and quicker. It gives in-depth information such as total files/ sub-folders, percentage size occupied and last modification date. It formats your files on a large to small basis.
8. SpaceSniffer
Pricing: Freeware
SpaceSniffer doesn’t show up the list of directories, unlike other tools. Instead, it shows a graphical treemap view. Double-clicking a folder will help you drill down graphically. You can also delete larger files straight from the SpaceSniffer app. The program is also available as a portable application.
9. RidNacs
Pricing: Freeware’
RidNacs shows your results into a multi-column tree view to identify the space hogs on your disk. You can also export the results into different formats ranging from .txt, .csv, .xml and .html). For better understanding, RidNacs automatically flags incompletely scanned directories with a symbol.
10. FileLight
Pricing: Freeware
FileLight is a KDE-based freeware and open-source application that scans local and removable disks along with network drives and shows up results with different color schemes. You can simply hover up your mouse cursor to display more information about files/ folders. FileLight is currently available for both Windows and Linux.