Comments for How can I tell what's taking up so much disk space?

Comment from Rohn on 2009-06-16

2009-06-17T03:26:38Z

One thing to remember is that when you are deleting files, if all you do is hit the "delete" button, they will normally end up in the "Recycle bin". Still using up space. Go into the recycle bin and clean it up too. Or use a tool like ccleaner to explicitly cleanup the recycle bin.

Or when you are deleting files, press and hold the SHIFT key in combination with the delete key to bypass the recycle bin.

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Comment from Zach on 2009-06-16

2009-06-16T14:06:52Z

I have an odd problem,i have a small hdd of 80 gb,10 of these are used for the C:\ drive,right now i have less than a gb of free space,800 mb more precisley,so i should have at least 8 gb of space used(my C:\ drive is not exactly 10 bg),but when i check the space used by all the files on my C:\ drive this is what i get :Size:7.02 and Size on disk 5.87 GB ,what could cause this?

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Comment from Bernard Scotson on 2009-04-30

2009-04-30T18:23:45Z

Still haven't used Disc Clean up as I haven't a clue as to what to keep and what to delete.Being a frightened that I might lose something essential, can you advise on what is reasonable to delete.Many thanks

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Comment from roseann santore on 2009-03-19

2009-03-19T22:05:40Z

i keep loseing free space i keep deleteing old files.i not useing .but i keep lose free space why/ can some one help.i have windows vista basic

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Comment from Robert Williams on 2008-12-03

2008-12-03T18:37:35Z

I have a Windows 2003 server and having similar issues. I've tried the tree size, disk cleanup, defrag, etc. and I am not seeing anything outside of the ordinary...but my disk space is being eaten away. I am using only 6.19 GB of space when I get the size from the folders, but it says that I have only 51 GB of remaining space (on a 150 GB drive). I know some is used for the swap file (1.5 GB). Nothing else exists.

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Comment from alice key on 2008-10-16

2008-10-16T13:16:26Z

How can I do the same thing for windows xp? What do I type in the run screen after i download the diruse and all that came with it from microsoft?

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Comment from jinxed on 2008-07-08

2008-07-09T00:14:15Z

I am running XP Prof, SP2, why is IE7 taking up so much memory? My system slows down or just completely stops in the middle of loading IE, I'll check what processes are taking up so much memory and it's IE, why so much? I do check for Spyware and download updates but it seems IE7 is using a lot of memory.

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Comment from Thheeez on 2008-04-25

2008-04-25T23:59:24Z

You dont know what your talking about it didnt work it only works for microsoft xp proffesional and windows 2003. You should explain that to people.

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Comment from micheal on 2008-02-03

2008-02-03T20:18:01Z

This process worked for me. I used to have 88.3 gb remaining on my HDD out of 140. Now I have 109gb remaining. Run disk clean up. Go to more options on the second tab. Go to the second part where it says remove restore points and shadow copies, press up clean up. This removes all of the restore points until the most recent one.

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Comment from justin on 2008-01-24

2008-01-24T11:54:23Z

im losing memory on my hard drive ive got 80 gig ive done the usual stuff i dont have much on my computer and yet i have 50gig left and it gets less each week how do i stop deleated folders bieng saved on my hard drive thanks.

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Comment from Lou Gascon on 2008-01-13

2008-01-13T13:12:08Z

Diruse - useful - But what then...?
I originally checked my usage on C:\ with Easy Cleaner Space Usage and got a print out showing \winxp using 33% of 16.6 GB (\system volume information uses 10% & \program files 13%)...
Why should WinXp need and use such a wadge of my hard drive and what (If anything) can I do to reduce it...?
Thanx in advance Leo
Lou

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Comment from Hoa on 2007-12-25

2007-12-26T05:13:41Z

Why,when I check the capacity of my hard disk, I see free capacity is 10.4GB and used capacity is 30.5GB.But,when I check all files and folders in the same hard disk, their capacity is only 13.6GB.I think it is not a virtual memory because it is too large difference.Please help me the reason and how to repair.My laptop is T61 Thinkpad.
Pls send me email.Thank a lot.

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2007-10-18

2007-10-19T04:59:51Z

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Try this article:
http://ask-leo.com/wheres_my_disk_space_going.html

Leo

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A comment on: How can I tell what's taking up so much disk space?

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Comment from Todd on 2007-10-18

2007-10-18T21:34:47Z

I've been losing approx. .5GB of free space per week(I have 80GB hard drive). I've tried all the normal stuff,can't stop the loss or find out where it's going. I read your article and downloaded DIRUSE,but cant open or run it. It appears to be for windows 2000. I have xp. Any ideas? I'm just about ready to give up and reformat.

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Comment from douglas campers on 2007-05-31

2007-06-01T02:12:59Z

Dude thanks for the tips. I hope adsense is treating you well.

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Comment from Tish on 2007-05-21

2007-05-21T18:50:37Z

I just want to say a great big THANK YOU for this very valuable information!!! You've just saved my sanity! Your instructions and information on diruse helped solve my problem. Thanks, again!

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2007-04-30

2007-04-30T19:31:11Z

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Sure! Use "more":

diruse /s \ | sort | more

:-)

Leo
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Comment from David Ross on 2007-04-29

2007-04-29T23:31:22Z

When I run "Diruse", it shows thousands of files and numbers zipping by, but when the program stops all the information disappears. Is there another command I can add after
” | sort” to freeze the information so I can look at it and scroll through it?

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Comment from kara on 2007-02-12

2007-02-13T00:00:00Z

My computer is a fairly new hp laptop, it is less than a year old. Recently I went to defrag it and relised that I only have 44% of my memory left and cannot find what is eating it all up. I deleted all of my pictures and all but 8 gigs of my music. I have done everything this page says to and have tried multiple temporary file removers(ex CC cleaner). nothing is working. I have almost nothing on this computer except mozilla, AOL, internet exploere. When I run programs like diruse I get results saying that my music is taking up the majority of the space (which only totals to be 44000 MB), but I know there is only eight gigs of music on it and my computer has the capacity of 84 gigs. I have had norton as my virusware in the past and I am currently using symantic. I cannot find what is eating all of my memory. got any ideas?
thanks kara
p.s. yes my windows is updated and as is my ad-aware and symantic

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Comment from Adam on 2006-10-09

2006-10-09T20:16:17Z

to do this on multiple number of machines, use psexec.

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Comment from Indranil on 2006-07-07

2006-07-07T17:47:30Z

Hi,
I was having a problem regarding this disk space. My drive was 4.65 and only .5 gb was left empty. I tried disabling the Sytem Restore on all drives. Instantly the free space became 1.88 gb. And I haven't tried a scan disk or even a reboot. Thanks Ivan, your suggestions saved me.

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Comment from Paul on 2006-02-14

2006-02-14T13:33:28Z

Can I also add JDiskReport:

http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/

It's pretty nifty on the analysis side.

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Comment from Jamie on 2006-01-31

2006-01-31T15:30:57Z

I really like WinDirStat. It is free open-source software pulished under the GNU General Public License. It allows you to sort files/folders by size, percentage of disk space, etc. It also provides a graphical view that makes spotting the space hogging culprits a piece of cake.

You can download it at http://windirstat.sourceforge.net/

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Comment from Leo on 2006-01-25

2006-01-25T18:21:05Z

That's an "interesting" display they use. HOWEVER I almost gave up on them totally because of the popup ad that was totally blocking my access to their site. BAD BAD behaviour ... especially for a university.

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Comment from chris on 2006-01-25

2006-01-25T17:59:22Z

In keeping with the tree idea my favourite disk space app is the sleeper "Sequoiaview".
With A beautifuly colored graphic interface it makes searching for large files as easy as looking at a picture.and best of all it's free from http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

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Comment from Gerald Entine on 2006-01-21

2006-01-21T14:05:50Z

By far the best tool to know what is taking up space on your hard drive is ZTREE, an old program which was developed during the early DOS years and originally called XTREE.

Among many other easy to use features, this program allows the user to list all files in order of size, date, name or extension. It is also easy to put in file specs such as *.tmp and *.bak or *.swp and view all such files with the goal of conveniently deleting those of no value with a few simple key strokes.

Some of the particular disk cleaning operations which are made possible by this program are to look for duplicate files located in two or more directories or partitions, copying selected files or groups of files to other drives or CDs while preserving their tree structure, or quickly determining which files have been modified on a given day to allow an incremental backup of a full day's work in less than a minute.

Although other disk maintenance programs may have more modern interfaces, nothing can compare with the effectiveness and ease of use as ZTREE (note: I have no affiliation with the authors or sellers of this program.)

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Comment from Gas van Ko on 2006-01-21

2006-01-21T12:09:02Z

This solution is simply not good enough! The best way to find out your disk usage is like Jake Ludington said, use a disk space analyser, except the one he mentionned, "Disk Triage" is software. I'm using (since 3 years now) a FREEWARE called TreeSize and its available here:http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml. It shows you a Directory tree listing with its size and percentage of space on the left, it also orders the directories from biggest to smallest. It is very useful and simple to use, I recommended to anyone who wants to free up space!

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Comment from Ivan Tadej on 2006-01-18

2006-01-18T17:14:02Z

Or the reason might be the files/directories saved by the System Restore NT-service, i.e. this folder is to used to store various system/configuration changes.

If you want to get the space back, i.e., get rid of all those files under directory usually named "\System Volume Information\" (however, note that you can't browse it), and located in root of a NTFS-formatted drive, one just needs to disable or stop the System Restore service (or just set it to Manual startup-type), reboot and enable/start it again; of course if one is confident enough to mess with "services.msc". Another option is however, to only delete all the "restore points". Ah yes, and just as a further information; also note that these files/directories cannot be defragmented by Windows built-in defrag program.

best regards,
Ivan Tadej, Slovenija, Europe
http://www.tadej-ivan.tk

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Comment from Jake Ludington on 2006-01-17

2006-01-18T04:46:00Z

diruse provides some cursory information about disk usage, but my favorite app for keeping track of disk usage (on my local computer and across my network) is Disk Triage. The app allows you to trend disk usage and watch for specific file types filling up hard disk space. Graphing and charts provides visual information about where your drive space is being used over time and in general offers some of the best details I've ever found for keeping unnecessary files from clogging my hard drive. It's not free, but the file management is well worth the price. Combining it with an app like the free DupKiller to eliminate duplicate files and you've got an optimized solution for keeping your disk space usage to a minimum.

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Comment from loco on 2006-01-17

2006-01-18T00:37:46Z

I cleaned up my disk and i ticked the compression of old files. Is that a problem? I also installed adobe acrobat 6 pro and when i entered Outlook it said that i have to accept some macros from adobe, it never asked me to accept anything before despite that i had adobe reader 7 installed, it says something about pdf.dot. Anyway, after that i recovered my pc to a date that i hadnt installed acrobat 6 pro and when i opened outlook it said the same (it wasnt supposed to say anything, because in the recovery date no acrobat 6 was installed). Is there something i can do to sort things out? Thanks in advance.

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