How To Check Folder Size In Windows

Folder Sizes in Windows Explorer

Microsoft'due south Windows Explorer has been one of its cadre applications since Windows 95. It is essentially a task-based file management application that is fundamental to the performance of Windows. I of the peculiarities of Windows Explorer, seeing that it is a file management application, is that it does not have the power to display folder sizes. This seems to be a feature that users want but it has never been fully implemented past Microsoft. windows folder properties size

The most likely reason it does not display folder sizes is that it would ho-hum down browsing of the file arrangement significantly. To show the size of a folder, Windows Explorer would have to read e'er file within every sub-folder earlier it could render a effect. Unfortunately, this takes time and uses upwards a lot of the systems processing power. Regardless, it seems odd that they didn't provide it equally an option in Explorer's settings. The column for size is already there for files so information technology would just be a matter of writing the code to calculate the binder size when the option is enabled.

Nevertheless, Explorer does provide some features to help users calculate folder sizes. The easiest and nigh well known method is to apply the context menu and check the properties of the binder. If you right click a folder and select properties Explorer will recursively scan every file and display the total size as it progresses in the properties window you can see in the screenshot on the right. This works well though sometimes it'southward hard to know when the process has finished as it tin interruption for a time before standing on. It would be prissy to see something that tell you lot it'due south completed at the end. The main problem with this method though is that yous accept to correct click every folder to get its size. As soon as yous close the properties window the data is lost. It'southward a shame it'south non added to the size column so that you don't accept to write it down or correct click the folder once more. This makes it very time consuming when you're trying to speedily make up one's mind which folders are using up the almost disk infinite on your drive.

Another way to run into the size of a folder is to place your mouse cursor over the folder and wait for the pop-up tool tip to announced. Though this feature works fine for smaller folders it's pretty useless for larger ones. For example, when I place my mouse over the c:\windows folder as shown in the screenshot below, the tooltip but states that it's larger than 7MB. Actually, it'south probably best to disable this feature birthday to meliorate functioning when using Explorer. This feature has been known to cause lengthy delays when browsing sure folders like those on a network. This feature is enabled past default in Windows seven and tin be turned on or off via Explorer'south menu by clicking Organize - Folder and search options - View tab - display file size data in folder tips (screenshot beneath).

windows folder options size tips windows folder size tool tip

Nonetheless, none of the above methods for calculating folder sizes provides a unproblematic and quick mode to assist you observe the folders that are taking up the majority of disk space on your local drive or network. For this reason Folder Size Explorer was created as a freeware awarding. Folder Size Explorer is a simple Windows Explorer clone that displays the file system items exactly every bit Explorer would except with the added pick to calculate folder sizes. It too provides columns for folder count, file count and file checksums calculations should you lot need them. The folder size adding tin can be enabled or disabled chop-chop by clicking an icon on the toolbar. You tin change the size annotation of the size column in Explorer with the click of a button from bytes to megabytes, kilobytes or gigabytes. During the binder size adding it allows you to printing escape or cancel at any time to cease the scanning so as to chop-chop display the standard folder and file items. Y'all can also press the skip push button to skip the size calculation of a particular binder that is taking too long to calcualte and move on to the next.

Finally, unlike the native Windows Explorer you can consign and salve a list of the files and folders with all their columns of information to a csv file. These csv files can then be opened and manipulated in external programs such as Excel, Give-and-take and Notepad. Another squeamish characteristic virtually Binder Size Explorer is that y'all can search for folders containining a specific string and then calculate their size. The same characteristic allows y'all to export custom lists of items to csv or calculate MD5, SHA-ane or SHA-256 checksums of matched items just. Below are a couple of screenshots of Folder Size Explorer on Windows seven and 8.1. Information technology has been designed to be as simple and clean every bit possible supporting Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 and Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012 including R2. (Both x86 and x64 versions are supported). Folder Size Explorer can be downloaded for gratis hither.