WinDirStat – Disk Usage Statistics Viewer for Microsoft Windows

WinDirStat is a GNU/GPLed disk usage statistics viewer for Microsoft Windows.  What it does is, it scans your hard disk and other connected storage devices  and displays all the files and directories in it via a directory list and a treemap.

It is a tiny utility (631 Kb) but which packs a punch in terms of its sheer number of useful features. For instance, once WinDirStat finishes scanning your hard disk, it will present the results in a nice display of a treemap. This treemap will give you a birds eye view of which files are taking up the most space.

WinDirStat interface is a right mix of beauty and functionality.

Each time you start WinDirStat, it does a fresh scan of your hard disk. Scanning doesn't take much time though.

Clicking on a part of the treemap will take you directly to the corresponding file in the directory list and you can execute any one of the tasks namely -

1. Opening the directory corresponding to that particular file in Windows Explorer
2. Deleting the specific file
3. Opening the command prompt in the directory holding the file, Or
4. Copy the path of the file to clipboard.

WinDirStat also has a very useful set of inbuilt keyboard shortcuts which can be used to navigate through the directory tree.

I found WinDirStat a very useful tool to identify and clean up my hard disk of useless files which were taking up valuable space. I like this tool all the more because it is free and has been released under a GNU/GPL licence.  You can download WinDirStat from it’s homepage.

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