TreeSize Free: Size it up!

TreeSize Free is a utility to analyze where the large files and folders are on your disk.  So basically, you open it up, pick to scan a drive or direcetory, and then it will show you a tree view, with largest on top. If you expand a folder in the tree, it will show the contents in the same fashion, and etc for those contents. 

A few things about it:

-Pick drives or directories: It lists every drive, even ones that don't have anything in it...which could be annoying....But then you can also select just a directory.

-Bars: To show space usage visually, it has horizontal bars for each folder, and then underneath that, more bars for each of the folder's contents. The annoying thing about this is that they are all the same color. In WinDirStat, subfolders have a different color, so it's very easy to see what is part of what. And in the latest version (2.2...), they changed from a nice color to a (imho) hideous orange/yellow color...and I don't believe you can change it. But you can at least turn it off if you don't want the bars.

-Refresh, but no Refresh Selected: There is a refresh feature, but no "Refresh selected" like in WinDirStat. But it's not necessarily bad since it's....

-Relatively fast: From what I've seen, it's generally faster than other programs like it. It takes seconds, and (I haven't checked) but very light. 

-Different views: Probably more views than any other program like it, even WinDirStat. It has Size, Allocated space (different, apparently), percent (and children will show the percent of their parents), CD/DVD cluster size (which is new to this version, so I dunno...), and File Count. True, other programs like WinDirStat show multiple of these, like Size, Items, Files, and Percent, but TreeSize Free has a few more. And it seems to calcuate them alot faster.

-Sizes: This is kinda nice. You can select to display sizes as KB, MB, GB, or (the best) mixed sizes, so it will show "20gb" on one folder, and "52mb" on the one below. Way better than having "20,000mb", or if you were to look in kb, "20,000,000kb". Unless you want that kinda thing. Which is why you have the choice.

-Tooltips: This is definitely new in v2.2. So a tooltip is a tiny "window" that appears when you hover your mouse over something (like the start menu), but TreeSize Free takes tooltips to the next level. If you hover your mouse over a folder or file, it shows a MASSIVE tooltip including:

• Name
• Size
• Allocated space
• % of parent
• Wasted (I dunno...)
• Files
• Folders
• Last change/access
• Attributes
• Directory level
• Creation date
• Average file size
• Permissions
• and more

So it gives you a fair amount of data, for a tooltip. But if you don't like it, you can turn it off.

-Files interweaved, but not expandable: I almost forgot. Some programs show only folders, but TreeSize Free includes "[Files]" in the list, reporting the combined size. Kinda nice, but it would be nice if [Files] would be treated like a folder, and you could expand it and see the individual files, like in WinDirStat, but I suppose that's just getting picky. So in other words, TreeSize Free doesn't handle large files, it just points you to where they are.

-Context: If you rightclick a folder in explorer (and you have the Context Menu option turned on), you can open it in TreeSize Free and it will start analyzing. Handy, right? Well, the really handy part is that it's not part of the install (well it might be...I'm running portable....:P), but there's actually an option in the menu, a checkmark that can add and remove it. So if you change your mind and want to get it out of your context, you don't have to go sifting through your registry, you can just flip it off. Plus, if you're going to be analyzing alot of disk space for a few hours, but you are a neat-freak about your context menu and want it clean afterwards, flip it on, analyze, then flip it off. I think I've made my point.

-File Filter: Not easily found, but there is one. Under View>Options, you can specify any filter, either filetype or part of a name.

-Print: Easy print button. Haven't used it, but it's there.

-Portable: Download just the EXE on the developer's site to run it portable.

-Tiny....ish: It's just under 1mb, so I'm gonna say that's tiny. That's generally my standard. But if you're looking for something smaller, than try i.Disk, as it is half the size of TreeSize Free. Or even WinDirStat is smaller than it by a couple 100kb....but I do think TreeSize Free is lighter on resources....

That's about all. Not a bad little program. It's been pretty faithful to me. It was the first disk analyzer I found, and I used it alot until I found WinDirStat. But it's still good, and I recommend it. Except for the new ugly bars.....what is up with that?

Visit TreeSize Free (JAM Software) website for download