Drive Monitor

Various processes create, modify and remove files constantly, and no one can be expected to keep track of all these changes. Thankfully, there are specialized applications that can help you keep an eye on file activity and notify you when actions are detected.

Drive Monitor is an open-source program that allows you to watch a folder, together with its subdirectories, log all actions and receive notifications when any activity is detected. It could use a couple of extra features, but it is an intuitive and lightweight monitoring utility.

Setting up Drive Monitor is as simple as can be. You don’t need to go through a setup procedure before launching the application, so it should take no time at all. Essentially, all you have to do is select the folder you wish to monitor and let the program do its thing.

If you want to monitor another directory, you can do so by opening another instance of the application from the Folder menu. Unfortunately, though, it is not possible to exclude specific subfolders.

The application detects when a file has been created, renamed or deleted, and these actions are recorded in a log. However, the program does not seem to be able to detect when a file has been modified.

Drive Monitor offers another interesting feature that is especially useful if any type of file activity needs to be analyzed – it can display tray area notifications when a file has been created, modified or deleted, but you cannot enable alerts for just one of these actions.

Drive Monitor is a small and efficient piece of software that enables you to track file activity in a specified folder without too much hassle. It cloud use a few extra features, but it is very easy to set up and unobtrusive.