Key Takeaways
- It’s not always apparent what’s taking up space on your SSD or hard drive.
- WinDirStat gives you a visual breakdown of the biggest space hoggers on your drive, helping you identify and delete unnecessary files easily.
- SpaceSniffer allows you to drill down a bit more into the graphical breakdown, so you can quickly discover each file taking up space.
Have you ever wondered where your precious disk space has disappeared to? Sure, you might have two or three large games in your games drive at the same time, but that shouldn’t take it from blue to red in the File Explorer, right? I become unsettled if any of my drives don’t have at least 100-200 GB of free space at any time. When a drive is too full, it can slow down performance. But it’s not always easy to find out what exactly is using up all the space on my SSD.
So what should I do? Delete that 100 GB game that I installed two months ago and have not even played yet? Yeah, not gonna happen.
Fortunately, there’s a more sensible option. If you’re on Windows, there are many tools that can analyze your drives and figure out what is really using up all the space on your SSD. I’ve found two standout programs that work best for me, and hopefully, should become your favorites in no time, too.
WinDirStat: Best for most users
Get a visual snapshot of your used space
Windows Directory Statistics, more commonly known as WinDirStat, is nearly 21 years old now. This fantastic tool allows you to generate an easy-to-grasp, visual breakdown of everything taking up space on your SSD or hard drives. When you launch the tool, it gives you the option to scan all the drives on your PC or choose a single drive or folder.
WinDirStat will then scan the requested location(s) and display a directory view at the top-left, with all the folders and files in descending order of their space usage. At the bottom, you’ll see a treemap — a color-coded breakdown with shiny boxes representing the largest files and folders on your drive. At the top-right, you can also see a size breakdown sorted by file type (archive, exe, pak, and so on), explaining the colors you see in the treemap.
The top-left directory view is useful as it shows the largest folders sorted by size and by percentage of space used. You can also see the number of files listed against each folder. But, the real kicker is the visual treemap at the bottom, which really hammers home the point, as you can instantly spot the biggest space hoggers on your drive. When you click a particularly huge box, you can see the folder or file behind it displayed at the top-left.
Once you’re sure that you don’t need a particular file or folder, you can delete it from within the program, without needing to dig for it in File Explorer. This simple and easy-to-use workflow is great when you want to find things that are not readily visible but taking up space on your SSD behind the scenes.
WinDirStat
WinDirStat is the best overall option if you want to dig deep into what’s taking up space on your SSDs or hard drives. It displays a visual, color-coded breakdown of the files and folders using the most space on your drives, so you can remove the unnecessary stuff and reclaim your space.
SpaceSniffer: Worth a try
Improves on the graphical view
WinDirStat is my go-to program, but SpaceSniffer has a few tricks up its sleeve, too. It improves on the graphical view that you see in WinDirStat. That means not only can you see the largest files and folders, but you can also double-click them to dig even deeper. This is a feature that isn’t available in WinDirStat. When you launch SpaceSniifer (better to run it as administrator), it will ask you to choose the drive you want to scan. You can also click on Path to select a particular folder.
Unlike WinDirStat, you don’t get a directory view or file extension list in SpaceSniffer. Instead, you just get a graphical view showing the largest folders (in brown) and files (in blue) on the selected drive or path. Again, the biggest boxes correspond to the largest files and folders. Hovering over a file or folder will tell you more information, such as the number of files inside a folder or the date of creation of a file.
You can double-click any folder box to open an expanded view showing the contents of that folder. This is where you can choose to delete or open a particular file. Double-clicking on a file inside a folder will simply magnify the view, more clearly displaying all the files inside that folder.
SpaceSniffer might not look as useful as WinDirStat, but its graphical view is superior as you can keep double-clicking to reach the very last file. In WinDirStat, you’ll have to do a new scan after choosing a particular path in order to drill down to a specific location. If this feature seems useful, then try SpaceSniffer.
SpaceSniffer
SpaceSniffer allows you to analyze your Windows PC and reveal what’s taking up the most space on your drives. Its graphical breakdown helps you find the largest files that you can remove to free up space on your SSD.
It’s easy to fill up your drive with unnecessary clutter
Over time, your SSD gets filled up with stuff you don’t need anymore — games you no longer play, applications you installed just for testing, or temporary files you forgot to erase. Tools like WinDirStat instantly display what’s clogging up your drive, so you’re better equipped to make a decision on what to keep and what to delete. Alternate tools like SpaceSniffer offer some bonus features, but WinDirStat is the best overall tool for almost everyone.
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