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WinDirStat – Windows Directory Statistics

oxygen_crisis
74 replies
1d11h

WizTree is famously almost 50x faster than WinDirStat (on normal Windows NTFS drives) by reading the Master File Table (MFT) instead of walking the tree to measure each file.

WizTree isn't open-source like WinDirStat but "free as in beer" with optional donations.

There's also a fork of WinDirStat patched to read the MFT but I don't know anyone who's tried it: https://github.com/ariccio/altWinDirStat

mardifoufs
37 replies
1d7h

What's the downside of just reading the MFT? Why doesn't Microsoft do it in file explorer, and why wouldn't every tool use it instead of walking through the file system? Maybe there's no downside but it's such a huge speed boost that it would be weird to not use it otherwise, right?

becurious
13 replies
1d5h

Along with the reasons others have mentioned, it would also bypass any filter driver in the file system stack (Windows has the concept of a stack of filter drivers that can sit in front of the file system or hardware) and would also ignore any permissions (ACLs) on who can see those files. There’s no way they can credibly use this technique outside of say something from SysInternals: it violates the security and layering of the operating system and its APIs.

mardifoufs
6 replies
1d2h

Is there a Linux equivalent for those "filters"? I'm a bit clueless about win32 and NT sadly enough...

Would that mean that there's no way to "scope" the MFTs?

Edit: That also makes sense, since if I got it right they aren't necessarily supposed to be consumed by userspace programs?

I guess that's why those tools always ask for admin access and basically all perms to the FS.

It's a bit sad that the user gets exposed to a much slower search and FS experience even if the system underneath has the potential to be as fast as it gets. And I don't think ReFS is intended to replace NTFS (not that it's necessarily more performant anyways)

wongarsu
3 replies
1d1h

There is no equivalent on Linux. That's why linux has no online antivirus scanners (scanners that scan the file as it's opened) while this is a basic feature of every antivirus program on Windows.

Linux has device mappers (dm-crypt, dm-raid and friends). But those sit below the file system, emulating a device. Window's file system filter drivers sit above the file system, intercepting API calls to and from the file system. That's super useful if you want to check file contents on access, track where files are going, keep an audit log of who accessed a file, transparently encrypt single files instead of whole volumes, etc. But you pay the price for all that flexibility in performance.

SSLy
1 replies
23h57m

What are the APIs related to this named?

webstrand
0 replies
1d2h

I believe they're approximately equivalent to FUSE

loeg
0 replies
1d1h

Filters are vaguely similar to things like mountpoints overlaying portions of the filesystem. E.g. in Linux you might have files in /d1/d2/{f1,f2,f3} in the root filesystem but you also have a mountpoint of a 2nd filesystem on /d1/d2 that completely changes the visibility / contents of d2. Filter drivers can do similar things (although they are not actually independent mountpoints).

RobotToaster
5 replies
1d1h

it violates the security ... of the operating system

Maybe stating the obvious, but if the security can be violated that easily, it's not very secure.

wongarsu
4 replies
1d1h

You need admin permissions to read the MFT on Windows. The traditional security model of both Windows and Linux assumes that the kernel is a security barrier between system and unprivileged user, and between different unprivileged users. An admin being able to bypass security restrictions isn't traditionally seen as a problem.

freedomben
2 replies
19h4m

Indeed, only in very recent history has the admin/root user/owner been seen as a threat to the system and the system employs defenses against them. I'm hoping that trend reverses because I really hate the direction things are going.

slaymaker1907
1 replies
18h11m

There are pretty good reasons to do that. We've been really lax in what is allowed to run as root/admin when in reality, those permissions should only be used when doing things like reading the MFT or snooping on all the network traffic with Wireshark. It should not be required to run as root/admin in order to install most software because installing software is a very common thing to do.

Even if you want more control over your system, I still think technically capable people would be better served by having a separate administrator account from your normal day-to-day account which you have to explicitly log into (so no UAC prompts, you need to go onto that other account and then you get the UAC prompt). Unfortunately, I think most Desktop OSes are still too unusable with this sort of workflow due to how much software insists on admin for installation.

freedomben
0 replies
17h48m

I largely agree. I think what makes the "the user is a threat" model so difficult to me is that there is a lot of truth to it. Users often don't know enough to make good decisions.

I really like your idea of logging in separately, such that is isn't something you're going to do cavalierly. That seems like a great compromise to me! I fully agree that we way overuse admin and really don't need it for the majority of things.

RobotToaster
0 replies
2h4m

Then it doesn't violate the security of the OS, if you need to be an admin to do it.

password4321
12 replies
1d7h

Reading the MFT directly requires Administrator permissions, and doing it correctly means reimplementing support for every nook and cranny of NTFS including things like hard links, junction/reparse/mount points, sparse files, etc.

hd4
11 replies
1d7h

Spacemonger uses the MFT and doesn't require Administrator privileges

hd4
5 replies
1d6h

Yes that one. Just use it and see. It's blazing fast.

soylentcola
0 replies
22h44m

Been using the portable version of 1.4 for decades after first coming across it in some PC magazine or something like that many years ago. Not terribly pretty, but it does what I need and it still works.

hd4
0 replies
1d6h

It's still interesting that they got it to work as fast and precise as they did.

justsomehnguy
3 replies
1d6h

AFAIR MFT access requires Administrator/SYSTEM rights and there is absolutely no way to read it as a regular user.

The only workaround (used by Everything by VoidTools) is to install a service which would run with a needed rights and communicate with it in the GUI.

faeriechangling
2 replies
1d2h

You call that a workaround but it’s basically the best possible situation security-wise. If this didn’t work securely then it wouldn’t be possible to implement disk defragmenter or even explorer. It’s so core to Windows NT’s security model that I wouldn’t call it a workaround.

You do similar things even with more modern stacks - assign a permission to an application and grant permissions to the application to the user.

The only real concern is that Windows NT permissions are not as granular as they could be.

mananaysiempre
1 replies
1d

Windows NT permissions are not as granular as they could be.

For objects, Windows NT permissions are ridiculously granular; e.g. GENERIC_WRITE can be mapped to a half-dozen separately settable type-specific flags, depending on the object type (file, named pipe, etc.). It’s too granular for even an administrator to make sense of, arguably, and the documentation is somewhere between bad and nonexistent. (The UI varies from decent, like the ACL editor you can access from e.g. Explorer, to “you can’t make this shit up”, like SDDL[1].)

For subjects, the situation is not good, like on every other conventional OS. You could deal with that by introducing a “user” for each app, as on Android. But I’m not aware of any attempts to do that (that would expose this mechanism in a user-visible way).

(Then there’s the UWP sandbox, which as far as I tell is build with complete disregard of the fundamental concepts above. I don’t think it’s worth taking seriously at this time.)

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/secauthz/sec...

faeriechangling
0 replies
20h14m

I have no idea if there’s a granular object permission that could give access to the MBR of a disk. I’ve thankfully never had to dig that deep into Windows internals.

I’ve had to work with SDDL before to setup granular permissions for WMI monitoring on a whole lot of computers and my god, did it make me love the Cloud and Linux. I can’t emphasize enough how unintuitive setting these permissions is creates systemic over privileging.

dspillett
6 replies
1d6h

> What's the downside of just reading the MFT?

One possible reason is that it isn't a published part of the filesystem's external interface, and the format is not guaranteed to be static between versions or even point releases (though in reality, while the behaviours may be officially undefined that are unlikely to change significantly).

Also, it requires admin elevation to access. Anything running elevated is a potential security concern as it can access much else too.

> Why doesn't Microsoft do it in file explorer

Not sure, but it could be because that would be seen as an unfair advantage so to avoid anti-trust allegations they would have to publish the format and make stability guarantees for it, so others could use it as easily/safely. That, and the reasons above & below too.

> and why wouldn't every tool use it instead of walking through the file system?

Largely because walking the filesystem works for all filesystems, local and remote, so you cover everything with one tree walk implementation. Implementing a tree-walk over the MFT data where available is extra work to implement and support for one filesystem, and not many care enough, or are not aware of the potential speed benefit at all, for it to be a huge selling point such that all toolmakers feel compelled to bother.

WaitWaitWha
3 replies
1d4h

One possible reason is that it isn't a published part of the filesystem's external interface, and the format is not guaranteed to be static between versions or even point releases (though in reality, while the behaviours may be officially undefined that are unlikely to change significantly).

I am not going to pull every document, but the MFT structure is documented and published. I am uncertain what you mean by "external interface".

"About 9,810 results (0.04 sec)"

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C11&q=mft...

dspillett
0 replies
6h39m

Though all the sub-pages of that state things like “[This structure is valid only for version 3 of NTFS volumes; it may be altered in future versions.]” — while it is true that any API could see breaking changes in future, this suggests that you should expect them, so I'd not call it supported in the same sense of the main file/directory access APIs which I would not expect to see breaking changes in (additional properties & functionality yes, but not existing things changing behaviour).

dspillett
0 replies
6h45m

A lot of people talking about the details, does not constitute official documentation though.

You can find a lot of articles talking about SQL Server's DBCC IND and DBCC PAGE, but that isn't official documentation – they are essentially internal functions and not supported and could change or go away entirely despite having been around for many versions, as they have in Azure). Similarly there articles talking about sys.dm_db_database_page_allocations which sort-of does the job of DBCC IND, but again this is not officially documented & supported.

> I am uncertain what you mean by "external interface".

I meant the published interface. Maybe "supported API" would have been a better phrase to use?

Though as pointed out below, there is at least some official documentation on the MFT structure.

loeg
1 replies
1d1h

It's probably also racy to access the raw MFT while there are concurrent programs creating new files (or deleting files). That complication can be avoided by using the ordinary OS directory iteration primitives.

hi-v-rocknroll
0 replies
22h34m

Yep but then the tradeoff of performance gains are completely discarded. The easiest solution is to take a snapshot with VSS, which is both fast and makes a quiesced copy of $MFT. From there, one could monitor FS changes if they wanted to have live updates.

jasode
1 replies
1d7h

>What's the downside of just reading the MFT? Why doesn't Microsoft do it in file explorer, and why wouldn't every tool use it instead of walking through the file system?

One disadvantage is that you can't read the MFT of network shares or device emulators presenting "virtual drive letters" to the OS.

The typical (and slower) Win32 API functions FindFirstFile()/FindNextFile() used to iterate through the files structure work at a higher level of abstraction so they work on more targets that don't have an NTFS MFT. Indeed, if you point WizTree to a SMB network share, it will be a lot slower because it can't directly read the MFT.

It's conceivable that Microsoft developers could have programmed Windows Explorer differently to have an optimized code path of reading MFT for local disks and then fall back to slower FindFirstFile()/FindNextFile() for non-MFT disks. Maybe that adds too much complexity and weird bugs. I notice that most of the 3rd-party "Win Explorer replacement" utilities also don't read MFT.

robertlagrant
0 replies
1d3h

It's conceivable that Microsoft developers could have programmed Windows Explorer differently to have an optimized code path of reading MFT for local disks and then fall back to slower FindFirstFile()/FindNextFile() for non-MFT disks

Surely this would have been worth doing, even if it meant flushing out bugs elsewhere.

hi-v-rocknroll
0 replies
22h46m

With RAM sizes now, it's curious why any OS wouldn't just cache some or all of metadata for some local volumes on a block basis rather incur the greater resource usage of transforming disk into different structures, and then caching and track individual entries.

matthews2
18 replies
1d11h

More MFT goodness: the file search tool Everything (https://www.voidtools.com/)

LelouBil
9 replies
1d6h

I want to like Everything but every time I start it up it takes 30 sec to 1 minute to update it's index

letmevoteplease
2 replies
1d5h

Try Everything 1.5a - an "alpha" version with many improvements, in development for years but inexplicably hidden away on their website. Never experienced any instability.

https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9787

skeaker
0 replies
1d

Wow! Shocked that this is the first I've heard of this given that I've been using Everything for years now. Thanks for the link.

kuro_neko
0 replies
18h47m

Love everything, but I had no idea there was an update... I'll have to try it right away, thanks!

Nexxxeh
1 replies
1d5h

Uninstall, re-install as a service which may now be default.

ziml77
0 replies
1d3h

Better as a service too because the GUI doesn't need to request admin rights.

xnx
0 replies
1d6h

You can set it to run on startup or as a service so it updates the index in the background.

naikrovek
0 replies
1d2h

You should not be starting it when you want to search. You should open it when you log in, and leave it in the tray. It will do a full index on launch then subscribe to filesystem notifications to keep itself up to date for as long as it’s open.

Do that and it’s alarmingly fast and responsive except for the minute or two right after launch.

benjaminpv
0 replies
22h13m

Contrasting seemingly all the other responses to this, I use it the same way you do (only opening it when needed) and I'm fine with the delay: even at its slowest rebuilding the index and searching is faster than the in-built windows Search.

Saris
0 replies
22h41m

It should be starting at boot if you installed it as a service, so the indexing will be done then. After that opening and searching is instant.

rezolva
4 replies
1d8h

I am building an advanced filemanager (FileNinja) for Windows with full integrated everything search & query. you have the option of saving bookmarks to virtual folders that consist of everything searches. Instant directory sizes, tags, custom file descriptions for ntfs. Anyone interested? https://youtu.be/JREufgkf5pk?si=sP05UCOrskpX8OTq

jron
1 replies
23h23m

Do you have a git repo to follow?

SuperHeavy256
0 replies
1d5h

haha I like the voiceover, the video is fun

Multicomp
0 replies
1d4h

I'm interested! Great marketing video by the way, a good example of using AI-powered voiceovers to level up the one-man-marketing polish capabilities.

xen2xen1
0 replies
1d8h

So that's why Everything is so fast. Nice.

la_oveja
0 replies
1d10h

essential tool

jug
0 replies
1d7h

It's crazy how the Windows Search Indexer still doesn't use MFT.

It doesn't even bloody support network drives so there's no such reason.

CJefferson
2 replies
1d10h

WizTree also understands things like OneDrive and Dropbox, and know that files "stored in the cloud" aren't taking up any disc space -- WinDirStat thinks my drive is 140% full.

cm2187
1 replies
1d10h

What about hard links?

useless_foghorn
0 replies
1d1h

Wiztree and WinDirStat will both double count hard links. I have a 12TB hard drive holding "17TB" because of sparse files and hard links. Windows file manager properties agree with Wiztree and WinDirStat as far as space used. I think the file manager looks for free space and calculates that separately, while Wiztree and WinDirStat are just adding up used space.

tyleo
1 replies
1d6h

You’ve got me interested but I’m finding it quite annoying that WizTree doesn’t actually have pictures of the software UI on the website. At least not under any of the obvious links I’ve checked.

Tijdreiziger
0 replies
1d1h

If you want to see screenshots of any piece of software, just search the name of the software on your favorite search engine and go to ‘images’.

(This might seem obvious, but it took me a long time to realize, hence why I’m passing the tip on.)

faeriechangling
1 replies
1d2h

WizTree isn't open-source like WinDirStat but "free as in beer" with optional donations.

Which is enough for me to not use it because WinDirStat still only takes a minute. Cool software though.

8372049
0 replies
23h29m

Exactly this.

_zamorano_
1 replies
1d10h

Didn't try AltWinDirStat, but did try FastWinDirStat.

The thing is, FastWinDirStat uses a licensed propietary component. No problem for me, but the author did have some back and forth with another user on GitHub.

Seems FastWinDirStat license don't match with using a closed source library, or something...

As for its actual functioning, it does as it says. Works much faster than WinDirStat

actionfromafar
0 replies
1d6h

Looks like a pretty clear violation of the WinDirStat license. They took WinDirStat which is GPL, linked it with some other proprieraty code and distributed the result.

(They could have been clear-ish (with caveats) by distributing only the source code and let the users do the compiling and linking, similarly to how you could download ZFS and build it into Linux. But you mustn't distribute the result further.)

rldjbpin
0 replies
10h28m

having used both on my pc, can attest to the speed claims. wiztree has yet to demonstrate annoying freeware/donationware pop ups during daily use.

rkagerer
0 replies
1d3h

FileLocator Pro is a good search tool that also uses the MFT.

password4321
0 replies
1d7h

WizTree is no longer free for commercial use.

I believe version 3.38 was the last version that is completely "free as in beer" with optional donations.

michaelcampbell
0 replies
6h29m

Thanks for this; it is incredibly faster. Never heard of it before.

burnte
0 replies
1d2h

SpaceSniffer is a much easier to use tool.

brnt
0 replies
1d7h

I'm a big Filelight fan. It used to not work well on NTFS volumes, it would miss files flagged Archived, has that been solved?

Sakos
0 replies
1d7h

Seeing a description directly in the README for the folders in the repo and their contents makes me really happy. I wish more projects would do that.

SSLy
0 replies
1d7h

I wish there was a duplicate file finder that used the MFT scan to pre-process the data instead of the FS tree walk

drpossum
11 replies
1d9h

I like how in the Year of our Lord 2024 this is not some basic functionality provided with the operating system.

system2
8 replies
1d9h

Up until very recently we couldn't even open zip files without a helper software. Unsure why microsoft doesn't add things like powertoys by default.

sumtechguy
0 replies
1d3h

Think they just added 7z and rar support very recently though. But zip has been in there for ages... I use it all the time.

Scharkenberg
1 replies
1d8h

25 years ago is not "recently".

prettyStandard
0 replies
1d6h

In technology years it's getting longer every year.

rezaprima
0 replies
1d8h

or reproduce something like ZipMagic (iirc, so defunct that its website is gone)

okanat
0 replies
1d8h

Your first statement is already refuted by other commenters.

For the second, the reason is offical software support, internationalization and accessibility. Microsoft provides certain guarantees for its officially released software. They don't want to provide those for Powertoys.

delfinom
0 replies
1d6h

Windows could open zip files all the way back to the XP era....

delfinom
0 replies
1d6h

Windows could open zip files all the way back to the XP era....

robertoandred
0 replies
1d3h

It still shocks me that windows can’t sort folders by size

dole
0 replies
1d4h

I'm just grateful we're not counting file shit in "blocks" anymore.

LeoPanthera
11 replies
1d11h

I like "ncdu", a TUI equivalent for Unixy systems.

Although I learned the hard way that if you run it on a Mac home folder, and have iCloud's "optimize Mac storage" turned on, macOS will suddenly try to download literally everything in your iCloud storage to try to count the size of it, probably filling your disk. Oops.

user3939382
2 replies
1d11h

DaisyDisk is an awesome macOS GUI version of this app

ck45
1 replies
1d10h

I’m still using the free OmniDiskSweeper from the legendary OmniGroup

vetinari
0 replies
1d9h

When mentioning ancient utilities, I'm still on Disk Inventory X.

qwertox
1 replies
1d7h

`ncdu` has the `-x` flag which means that "Only count files and directories on the same filesystem as the specified dir.".

Maybe that could help.

LeoPanthera
0 replies
22h39m

Sadly it does not help, the files appear to be normal files in the same filesystem, macOS simply does magic behind the scenes.

You have to manually tell ncdu not to scan the ~/Library/Mobile Documents directory.

xxpor
0 replies
1d3h

don't execute a (space taking) write operation when the user requests a read seems to be a reasonable rule for most things.

nickcw
0 replies
1d1h

You can use `rclone ncdu` to work in a very similar way on any cloud storage that rclone supports

https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_ncdu/

I love ncdu and this is my homage to it!

arcanemachiner
0 replies
1d8h

I switched to gdu a couple years back for reasons that I do not remember. I think it is faster or something.

angch
0 replies
1d10h

There's also "diskonaut", a TUI which displays the output like the treemap of WinDirStat. Bonus is that the display is incremental and updates as it scans everything, so you don't need to wait for the complete scan to see how everything looks like.

Written in Rust, and it's a `cargo install diskonaut` away if you have the rust toolchain installed.

molticrystal
9 replies
1d5h

They are getting very close to releasing windirstat-next [0] and already have some betas out, you can learn more about it in the subreddit. [1]

WinDirStat fans,

As a new pet project, I recently started some substantial revisions to WinDirStat in my GitHub branch and will work with current maintainer (Oliver Schneider) to eventually publish a new release hopefully in the next few months. The current changes on deck speed up performance drastically (seconds compared to minutes in some cases). It uses less memory compared to recent alternatives (WizTree), is faster as scanning network paths, and obviously isn't pushy about donating (although I certainly would not discourage folks from donating to their favorite opensource projects).

Oliver recently opened up the GitHub Issues trackers, and I would love to hear suggestions or known bugs for the existing version:

For the nerds interested in the changes I have queued up, you can visit the GitHub page

[0] https://github.com/windirstat/windirstat-next

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/WinDirStat/

mlrtime
6 replies
1d4h

Hijacking this comment...

Does anyone know anything close to WinDirStat for google drive? I really need something like this.

nickcw
1 replies
1d1h

You can use `rclone ncdu` on Google Drive

https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_ncdu/

It is great at answering the question - where is all my storage? Also has a handy interface for deleting stuff.

nektro
0 replies
15h30m

this has been my go-to. great tool all around

xd1936
0 replies
1d

I have done this before, and it works, but the client downloads every single file locally in the background before it's able to do the comparison. I suspect this is because WinDirStat requests metadata about the file itself, and the sync client needs to download the files in order to serve that metadata and/or file contents information to the application.

swozey
0 replies
1d4h

About a decade ago when I worked in IT I used Treesize Pro to scan SMB volumes and delete the MOVIES that employees had downloaded on their computers, which meant they were downloading MOVIES to our SAN because we used roaming profiles. I'll never get over that these people downloaded literal pirated movies to our servers. It was constant. I ended up putting file size limits on their directories, or a file extension block, I forget.

The free version can't scan network drives if the servers on a domain IIRC.

https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free

edit: Oh I thought I read SMB drive not google drive for some reason. I'm not sure if this does that or not. It's my favorite GUI so worth checking out.

rmholt
0 replies
1d4h

Mount Google Drive as a folder (rclone) and run WinDirStat?

swozey
1 replies
1d4h

It really frustrates me when a project has a GUI and there are no screenshots of it on their github.

I know exactly what Windirstat looks like, I have no idea what this will/does look like and shouldn't have to install it to find out. I don't like Windirstats UI.

mateus1
0 replies
1d3h

It is a directory view coupled to a tree map view of folders where the area is proportional to their size.

Navigating the directory view highlights the corresponding area on the tree map.

Files are color coded according to their type.

hilbert42
7 replies
1d15h

It's likely the product is now abandoned-ware or no longer developed. I'm sure this is the same version (or just a point different) that I had on my PC about a decade or so go. That said, that version worked OK.

notachatbot1234
3 replies
1d11h

That might just mean that the product is good and finished.

thefz
1 replies
1d10h

But... it does not have an AI bot!

Seriously, been using WDS for years and I could not care less about new features or its speed.

varispeed
0 replies
1d8h

"What would you like to delete today? Here are 10 suggestions that will blow your mind. CLICK HERE"

SuperHeavy256
0 replies
1d5h

This!

readthenotes1
0 replies
1d11h

I've used windirstat recently and it worked fine. Valuable to find the wasted space...

nray
0 replies
1d10h

Still used in Windows IT environments as it's portable, even if it is a bit slow and there is no console version for generating tree-maps for remote viewing.

Neil44
1 replies
1d6h

du -h --max-depth=1 | sort -h

arsome
0 replies
1d3h

If you want a nicer presentation, try ncdu.

immibis
0 replies
1d2h

IIRC WinDirStat is inspired by it.

goffi
0 replies
1d6h

I really like the fsview plugin that comes with Konqueror. It can be run independently: `fsview /some/dir`.

Sakos
1 replies
1d8h

I really like the visualization, the functionality to watch live file access is so freaking cool. It's a bit slow though, no? After using something like WizTree, it's hard to go to something that needs minutes to finish scanning. I do wonder what kind of a performance impact it has.

smusamashah
0 replies
1d7h

It takes time for first indexing, yes. But once its done, any copy/move you do afterwards shows up in the UI at the same time.

worewood
0 replies
18h29m

Also, SpaceSniffer is the only tool of all the popular ones that correctly accounts the size of files with NTFS compression, accurately accounts for directory junctions and links (by not counting them) and NTFS alternate data streams.

jonathanlydall
0 replies
1d7h

I used Space Sniffer for a very long time, but looked for alternatives because it crashes somewhat regularly and is generally a bit of a resource hog.

Since trying WizTree I don't think I'll ever go back, it's so much faster, hasn't crashed once on me, and the visualizations are completely adequate for me to be able to see where space is being used.

tbrizitsky
3 replies
1d3h

There are quite many apps for visualizing disk folder structure for almost any OS. Any flavor you like: lists (diskwave, omnidisk), treemaps (GrandPerspective), pie charts (DiskSavvy), sunburst (baobab), icicle, etc.

The two winning visualization types are sunburst and treemaps. Both have their own cons and pros, but in our tests user sunburst performed slightly better for regular users. My personal bet is that no disk space analyzing tool's developer took it seriously or tried to actually advance the algorithms. Most of the apps I know use quite straightforward implementation and haven't been touched for years. Guess a little bit of filtering, grouping and changing coloring algorithms could significantly improve the treemap's perception, but someone has to do the job.

disclaimer: I'm the original designer of DaisyDisk.

tbrizitsky
0 replies
22h25m

I'm surprised they photo-manipulated that much. The makers of Unfriended: Dark Web just used the actual app :)

kristiandupont
0 replies
1d1h

Thank you for DaisyDisk, it's my go-to when I need to free up some space and it's a delight to use!

netbioserror
3 replies
1d4h

It still tickles me that many Linux distros come with a tool like this preinstalled (https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/DiskUsageAnalyzer). Ah, the good ol' Windows days of having to hunt down tools that were actually useful. Far in the rearview mirror for me.

zo1
1 replies
1d4h

It tickles me that I still can't get a proper console program (like Conemu) on most Linux distros. Or anything resembling AutoHotKey or Notepad++.

Like it may be fine for you, but it's definitely not a flex for some of us. And I use Linux as my daily driver.

edward28
0 replies
9h1m

Or the old classic du -h / | sort -h

kuro_neko
3 replies
1d11h

It's a longtime friend of mine who has kept my computer from wasting space. But it's pretty outdated, and I think there are better programs out there now.

martin293
2 replies
1d10h

Such as?

kuro_neko
1 replies
1d10h

WizTree, TreeSize or Fast WinDirStat (just fork).

But I still like to turn on WinDirStat and take a moment to relax.

SuperHeavy256
0 replies
1d5h

based.

convFixb
2 replies
1d10h

Note: There’s a gotcha when using it in multi-user environments (like a server).

Users with Administrator access do not have permission to enumerate directories / files inside other Admin users home directories. So any per-user files are not counted in this scenario.

Source: ‘The mysterious case of the Windows server with a full disk but WinDirStat shows it as only half-full’ :-)

justsomehnguy
0 replies
1d7h

Yes, that's why WinDirStat is a no go at all.

Use WizTree, or any other util what reads NTFS MFT directly.

Dylan16807
0 replies
1d10h

It can't get to all the files even for a single admin user, you need to do something like run it as system with psexec.

Tiberium
2 replies
1d11h

Not open source (freeware), but much faster than WinDirStat for NTFS - WizTree https://diskanalyzer.com/. In short - it scans the actual filesystem metadata directly instead of enumerating files through the OS APIs, which makes it extremely fast.

seffect
1 replies
1d11h

Nice, so a bit like Everything but for disk space!

xnx
1 replies
1d6h

Any good (preferably open) WinDirStat alternatives for Android?

okanat
0 replies
15h5m

Xplore file manager has this ability

tylervigen
1 replies
1d1h

I have used WinDirStat for years. It's not perfect, but it solves my use case very well.

My use case is just: my disk is full, I don't know why. This happens on one of my computers like once a year, so the fact that it's slow is fine. It usually helps me spot some folder set that is taking up a lot of space that I don't need on that PC, or something large that is duplicated.

My personal favorite example is wedding photos and videos. Turns out: those are huge, I am not going to delete them, but they don't need to be backed up on every computer I own.

ipaddr
0 replies
22h52m

Probably the one thing you should over do the backups for

myfonj
1 replies
1d8h

I like Diskitude by Evan Wallace the most for this kind of quick and easy drive content sizes inspection. It does full scan, but is pretty fast and easy to use. And is super tiny.

https://madebyevan.com/diskitude/

iKlsR
0 replies
1d5h

I was about to share this, I just told someone about it the other night, been using it well over a decade now without any issue, the same exe I downloaded in 2011 or so.

moneywoes
1 replies
1d4h

anything like this for mobile phones?

skeaker
0 replies
1d

For Android I've found a tool just called DiskUsage that does this, but the visualization isn't quite as good.

kid64
1 replies
1d10h

I recently observed, much to my delight, that WinDirStat runs flawlessly on Android under Winlator (https://www.winlator.org/).

xnx
0 replies
1d6h

Wow. A system utility that reads the Windows MFT is about the last thing (after system drivers maybe) that I would expect to work under an emulator on Android.

SuperHeavy256
1 replies
1d5h

I tried many other so called "successors" to WinDirStat. I didn't like a single one of them, each of them had some significant problem.

This is a case of "If it ain't broken, don't fix it". This executable is from 2005 and still works flawlessly.

If you haven't tried it yet, I encourage you to!

benjijay
0 replies
1d5h

I used to have similar views, but last year found out about WizTree and was instantly converted. Way faster, just as functional.

HPsquared
1 replies
1d3h

Treemaps are generally a really cool way to visualise hierarchical data. See also the Observatory of Economic Complexity, which has treemaps of international trade and economic statistics.

https://oec.world/profile/country/gbr#yearly-trade

ConradKilroy
0 replies
1d1h

fancy and interesting, thx for sharing.

qwertox
0 replies
1d7h

Same for me. Before using it I was using WinDirStat and before that SequoiaView, but I've now stuck to using only TreeSize Free for years now. It's good enough and the user interface is very clean.

worewood
0 replies
18h26m

Haven't tried it in years. Have they ever fixed it not accurately accounting for directory junctions and links?

Edit: it seems they have! But I don't know about NTFS compression and alternate data streams.

userbinator
0 replies
1d4h

From the download page:

It is known to run on Windows 95 (IE5), Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows NT4 (SP5), Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8 and 8.1.

...it is also known to run on Windows 10 and 11, and likely any newer versions too. IMHO this is a great example of how software should be. One tiny binary that is very widely compatible, doesn't have any user-hostile "features", and remains stable and bug-free. It's a contrast from an industry that largely can't produce such achievements, is becoming increasingly hostile, and quite telling when there are already comments here complaining about its age.

purplecats
0 replies
17h13m

Disk Inventory X is the closest to as pretty as that I've found. I wish it was maintained

kazinator
0 replies
1d2h

I use WinDirStat. At one point a number of years ago, I became curious about the parent program KDirStat. So I actually got that installed on some Ubuntu or something. It was interesting. Like a prototype for WinDirStat or something.

insane_dreamer
0 replies
1d1h

been using GrandPerspective on Mac for the past 15 years and still v. happy with it

fuzzy2
0 replies
1d10h

Can WinDirStat deal with hard links nowadays? Windows uses them extensively in the WinSxX folder and possibly elsewhere.

dunk010
0 replies
1d7h

I've used this in the past, it's really great.

cush
0 replies
1d3h

I feel like I’ve been using this tool for 20 years. So useful!

byteknight
0 replies
1d4h

TreeSize is far better IMHO

accrual
0 replies
1d3h

I'm a fan of WinDirStat. Yes it can be slow, but it runs on darn near every Win OS, hasn't changed in years, is a small executable, and the site always seems available. I used it many times to solve disk space issues on the job.

WhyNotHugo
0 replies
1d5h

Other Linux implementations:

- https://github.com/bootandy/dust (command line, extremely fast) - mate-disk-usage-analyzer (gui/gtk, a bit more intuitive and allows operating on files too).

SantiagoElf
0 replies
1d1h

TreeSizeView also works perfectly.

Dwedit
0 replies
1d1h

WizTree directly reads the MFT, and is a LOT faster, but it is not a free program.

0969mime0969
0 replies
1d

I love WinDirStat and was pleasantly surprised to learn there is also a Linux variant that is really good. https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat