Create folder size summary report on Windows

SearchMyFiles is a freeware tool that allows you search files on your system. In addition to the standard files search, SearchMyFiles also allows you to scan a folder or a full drive and display a summary report that shows you the total size of every folder, the total size of the folder on disk, wasted space of this folder, total number of files, and so on....
You can use this feature to find out which folders eat your disk space.

In order to generate this folder-size report, follow the instructions below:

  1. Download SearchMyFiles and run SearchMyFiles.exe
  2. In the 'Search Mode' combo-box Choose 'Summary Mode'. This option requests SearchMyFiles to generate folders report instead of normal file search.
  3. In the 'Base Folder' field, type the drive or folder you want to scan. In the following example, C:\Program Files was selected.
  4. Optionally, you can also choose other options to create the folder size report according to your needs. For example, if you want to only accumulate the size of .mp4 files, then you can type *.mp4 in the 'Files Wildcard' field.

    Search Options Summary Mode

  5. Press the 'Start Search' button to start scanning your folder/drive. It may take a while until you get the report, depending on the size of the folders you scan.

After the scanning process is finished and you get the folder-size summary report, there are 2 more important options that affect the report: (You can find these options under the Options menu)
  • Include Subfolders in Summary Totals: If this option is selected, the folder size and files count include the folder itself and all its subfolders. If this option is unchecked, the folder size and files count only include the folder itself, without its subfolders.
  • Summary File Size Unit: You can choose the unit to display the file sizes - Bytes, KB, MB, GB, or automatic.

Folder Size Summary Report

You can also sort the report by the desired column. In order to do this - simply click the column header of the column you want to sort. For example: If you want to find out which folder has largest wasted space, simply click the 'Wasted Space' column header, and go to the bottom of the report.
If you want to find out which folder consumes the most space of your disk, simply click the 'Size On Disk' column, and go to the bottom of the report.