How to find what is taking up disk space on Windows

When Windows says a drive is almost full, the fastest approach is to go from broad categories to specific folders to individual files. That prevents you from wasting time deleting a few small files when one forgotten backup or video folder is using tens of gigabytes.

1. Start with Windows Settings → Storage

Open Settings → System → Storage. Windows gives you a useful high-level breakdown of categories such as installed apps, temporary files, documents and other storage.

This is a good first check because it answers the broad question: is the space mostly apps, user files, temporary data or something else?

2. Check the obvious high-growth folders

Before installing anything, inspect the places that commonly grow over time:

• Downloads
• Videos and recordings
• Documents and project folders
• Desktop
• backup/export folders
• game captures, installers and archives

Right-clicking a folder and opening Properties can give you its total size, but repeating that manually across a deep folder tree becomes slow very quickly.

3. Sort individual files by size

File Explorer can show files in Details view and sort them by the Size column. This is useful inside a folder when you suspect a few large videos, archives, disk images or installers.

The limitation is folder comparison: Explorer does not continuously calculate every folder's full recursive size in the main list. If the space is buried several levels deep, you can end up opening folders one at a time just to find the next large branch.

4. Measure folders largest-first

This is where a folder-size scanner saves the most time. Scan the drive or a suspicious folder, sort the immediate children largest-first, and then drill into the biggest branch. Repeat until you reach the files or subfolders that explain the missing space.

The percentage of the parent folder is useful here: a 20 GB folder matters very differently inside a 25 GB parent than inside a 2 TB archive.

5. Search the whole subtree when you know part of the answer

If you remember a filename, extension or folder fragment, recursive search is often faster than drilling manually. Folder Space Detective's Find field ANDs search terms together and supports exclusions, prefixes and wildcards.

For example:

• .mkv \test !.lnk — include terms and exclude shortcuts;
• name:"final render" !path:\cache — find a phrase but exclude a cache path;
• ext:zip path:\Downloads — focus on ZIP files under a Downloads path.

Supported prefixes include name:, path:, ext:, type:file and type:folder.

6. Use indexing only if repeat scans will benefit from it

Folder Space Detective does not require indexing. You can scan any folder normally. Pro's optional saved indexes and background refresh are useful when you repeatedly revisit the same large locations or want indexed path autocomplete.

No folder is indexed until you add it. Background refresh is optional and only runs while Folder Space Detective itself is running.

7. Clean up safely after you understand the space

The goal is not simply to find the biggest item and delete it. First ask whether the file is replaceable, whether an application owns it, and whether it belongs to Windows or another program.

What happens to your scan data?

Folder Space Detective scans locally. It does not contain telemetry, analytics, advertising or cloud storage. Scan contents, file paths, cleanup rules and optional indexes are not uploaded. Internet access is used for the product's checkout/licensing actions.

During scanning, reparse points and junctions are skipped to avoid loops and double counting.