How to determine what and where my super-large files are
I'm looking for a gui-based, or easily-navigatible non-GUI way to determine what and where the largest files on my hard drive are.
Or perhaps there's a way to determine this from File Explorer that I don't know about.
dir/p and other options are not easy to use!?
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it looks to me you have some problem - why not post the problem itself?
As @nobus mentioned, describe the exact problem you're trying to solve.
Sometimes, in the case of ghost files, no disk inspector can solve the problem.
The symptom of a ghost file(s) problem is all disk space is instantly eaten up, where only a reboot restores free disk space... or at some point the ghost files are released when the process using them completes...
Sometimes, in the case of ghost files, no disk inspector can solve the problem.
The symptom of a ghost file(s) problem is all disk space is instantly eaten up, where only a reboot restores free disk space... or at some point the ghost files are released when the process using them completes...
It's true that sometimes tools miss things, usually because of permissions issues. I wrote an article on how you can get the best possible information - see https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/28565/Using-Tools-To-Find-What-is-Using-Your-Disk-Space.html
I come down on the TreeSizeFree side. Tried both. I run it as administrator, to enable it to access hidden folders. However, as mentioned, there are elements that can take up drive space that may not appear in these tools. Most notably Windows work spaces for update installations. .
By running the application as the SYSTEM account (as I've documented in my article I linked to), you can get most if not ALL items on a disk, since the System account often has access to everything Windows.
Lee makes an excellent point about which account you use affecting what you'll see.
TreeSize and WinDirstat are the only primary ones I have used.
Built-in Disk Cleanup provided by Windows is limited, but shouldn't be counted out of something to leverage, you just cant drill down
You can find and filter by File size in for example File Explorer downloads, documents that way but that's a general overview, does not include a comprehensive assement of system files
Be careful of what files you remove also if you're looking to do cleanup, always research what a large file is or means, or ask here of course
https://manuals.jam-software.de/treesize/EN/using_treesize.html
Built-in Disk Cleanup provided by Windows is limited, but shouldn't be counted out of something to leverage, you just cant drill down
You can find and filter by File size in for example File Explorer downloads, documents that way but that's a general overview, does not include a comprehensive assement of system files
Be careful of what files you remove also if you're looking to do cleanup, always research what a large file is or means, or ask here of course
https://manuals.jam-software.de/treesize/EN/using_treesize.html
https://alternativeto.net/software/disk-inventory-x/?platform=windows provides various Windows-ish alternatives.