SizeOnDisk Portable

Windows allows you to keep an eye on disk space usage, and easily manage it with the default set of features. However, tracking down folders is a bit different, since there’s no possibility to view space they all take. Luckily, you can use specialized applications like SizeOnDisk Portable to get a better view of files and folders, as well as space distribution.

One of the main advantages is portability, as the name clearly points out. This not only enables you to use it on other computers, but you don’t even have to worry about affecting the target PC, because registries are not modified to make the application work.

The application comes with a rather simple, yet highly intuitive design. A side panel shows a tree list of all folders, while the central area enlists all containing files, and subfolders of the selected item. Various details are shown, such as file type, number of subfolders, files, size, attributes, creation, access, and last write date.

Sure enough, you aren’t able to drag folders over the main window to scan them, and neither is there a context menu integration. However, the browse dialog is pretty easy to use, and you can load more, with the application also keeping previous search elements.

It generally takes a little while for the application to scan a folder, or even an entire drive. In case you want a thorough analysis, a quick function restarts the application with administrator privileges. Files, and folders can be launched directly, or have the properties panel brought up for close inspection.

In case you don’t really understand specific info fields, the legend panel clearly explains the color, symbol, and characters used. What’s more, the options menu lets you change the size indicator to bytes, KB, or factors of 1024, which displays values in a regular manner.

To sum it up, SizeOnDisk Portable is sure to come in handy sooner or later, providing a neat view of folders structures, and how much space they take on your hard disk drive, or even a thumb drive. Multiple folders can be selected for the process, while files can be directly launched, or analyzed in File Explorer.