Compactor

If you are running out of storage and you feel like there is absolutely nothing you can delete from your drives, then compressing the data on your computer might be a solution to consider. As the name suggests, Compactor is a lightweight tool that enables you to compress data and works best with files that usually don’t suffer many modifications, but tend to take up a lot of space.

The application comes with a lightweight, user-friendly interface and you can get started by browsing to the folder that you want to compress. Take note that the tool works with one folder at a time and doesn’t support drag and drop. The app scans the directory and provides a few details to help you decide about the contents and whether it’s worth compressing.

There is no visible real impact following the compression and you can continue to use the files on your computer as you regularly do. When you access a specific file, the program automatically decompresses it, so it appears like it is uncompressed, if it’s not a large file. For larger files, the process might take some time, as the file will hang until it is completely uncompressed.

The developer advised caution, as there has been one report of data corruption with open SQLite database files. Moreover, it recommends that the tool be used with files that rarely change and that are not extremely large, such as a database, for instance.

To avoid losing data or changes that would make the data unreadable, it is best to add these large chunks of data to the exclusion list from the Settings. Here is where you can also choose the type of preferred compression and the options include XPRESS8K, XPRESS4K, XPRESS16K and LZK. Compactor is a specialized tool that doesn’t work with all sorts of data, but rather with large files that are static and rarely change.