All the rich media content available for download nowadays easily gulps up the free disk space we have on the system. Image files, video and audio content are the first responsible for high storage necessities, followed by digital books and other sorts of documents. Tracking the files that take the most space is a very time consuming task unless you have the right tools to automatically retrieve the information.

Disk Savvy is a tool specially built for analyzing disk space, giving you a broken down report of the files and folders taking the largest chunks. Besides its basic purpose, the application can also handle file operations such as copying, moving or deleting data. It comes as a freebie with trimmed down capabilities compared to the Pro version, which can handle a significantly larger number of files, lets you save analysis reports and analyze specific file types.

The configurable interface with no room for bells and whistles makes handling all the options and working with the application a walk in the park. Simplicity really paid off in this case, offering you an easy way of calculating the size of all the files and folders on a partition and nothing more. Basic work with the program consists in simply picking the partition or folder you want to have a size report on and start the procedure.

However, even this simple Disk Savvy provides the possibility to create an exclusion list where you can add any folder you do not wish to be part of the report. Obviously, you can add as many paths in there as you wish. But the best part is that all these locations can be saved by the application for ulterior uses. This is possible thanks to the multiple profile support included in the program. Different profiles with custom exclusion lists can be created for each partition available to the system, thus allowing you to perform a disk space analysis only for the folders you can delete something from.

The opposite function, that of checking out the size only of certain directories, is also present in Disk Savvy. It may prove to be a real time and disk space saver when you want to pinpoint the largest files in a folder. In order to achieve this, all you have to do is choose the drive the folder is located on and proceed with analyzing. The profile settings will be automatically displayed permitting you to build up the inclusion and exclusion lists as you like.

Further configuration of the profiles provides the possibility to set a default performance mode out of the three available (Full, Medium and Low Speed) and the file scanning mode (sequential or parallel). “Rules” tab present in the freebie’s interface is actually restricted for the upgraded version of the software. This is definitely not too comfortable for the average user who wants a clean interface with clear options and functions available, without the frustrating upgrade screen.

On the upside, once the analysis is complete, you can navigate freely from one folder to another and view the number of files contained and the total size (percentage as well). Moreover, moving, copying or deleting data with Disk Savvy simplifies file management a lot. If you need to open selected locations in Windows Explorer, Disk Savvy will do it as well.

It does a wonderful job, in quite little amount of time, but the limitations of the freeware version are definitely a nag that users have to withstand. It is worth noting that this edition cannot process more than 100,000 files and reports can’t be saved. Should you handle locations with a larger number of files, you’ll be prompted to upgrade to the pro version ($9.99). However, the analysis procedure is not compromised because the app will show you the report for the data already parsed.

The set of configuration options included in Disk Savvy won’t give you any trouble at all. The three tabs present in the options panel include defining the proxy particularities (if necessary), personalizing the shortcuts for handling the app only through your keyboard and general setup choices. These are the most interesting as they affect directly the way Disk Savvy works.

You can disable showing the profile dialog before starting the disk space analysis process, disable the processing of system files (recommended). Aborting the operation on critical errors and displaying scan access denied errors are also part of the configuration choices.

Disk Savvy is extremely easy to set up and even easier to work with. Viewing all the files eating the most of your hard disk’s storage capabilities is just a matter of selecting an entire partition or a specific folder and wait for the results to come up. Finer tuning includes the creation of an exclusion list for the current job or for an entire profile. Moreover, setting it to check the space occupied by a single folder and viewing the files covering the largest percentage does not require any effort at all.

However, this is the free version of the application and a few nag screens informing of the limitation of the edition will pop up. The maximum amount of files it can process is 100,000, and there is no possibility to save a report or set up files matching rules without upgrading to the Pro version of the application.

The Good

Disk Savvy does not require too much effort to provide you with an accurate disk analysis report. It does its job pretty fast and also lets you create an exclusion list in order to speed up the process and have a look only at the data you are interested in.

The basic file management functions, such as copying, moving a file or deleting it, are available in the application, just like the possibility to start checking the selected location using Windows Explorer.

The Bad

By far, the major downside in the program is the limitations of the free version. Unless you learn the way of the freebie, they’ll nag you whenever a restricted function is accessed.

The Truth

The free version of Disk Savvy can truly be a disk space saver. It does not let you save reports and view them at a later time, or process more than 100,000 files, or use file matching, but it works fine and can be used to check out the space specific folders and deprive you of; and that’s what most users need.

The nag screens informing of a feature being available only with paid software upgrade do not make Disk Savvy comfortable to work with.