When you open any folder inside Windows Explorer (Win+E), it will display the size of individual files contained in that folder but you won’t get to know about the size of various sub-folders that are located inside that folder. The same is true for Windows Explorer available inside XP as well as Vista.
If you find this limitation annoying, what you really need is Folder Size – a free utility that adds a new column in your Windows Explorer to display the size of files as well as folders.
Folder Size installs a Windows service that scans your hard drive in the background, calculates the folder sizes and caches these results, so the results in most cases are almost instantaneous.
To add the Folder Size column in Windows Explorer, right click on the column headers to see a list of columns you can add and choose "Folder Size" and also uncheck the Size column. You may drag the Folder Size column header to where Size used to be. Make this the default view for all folders.
Folder Size is currently available for Windows 2000 and Windows XP but the developer is close to releasing a new version that would work with Windows Vista as well.
See also – Xplorer2, a much better Windows Explorer.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/software/display-size-of-every-folder-in-windows-explorer/7643/
Tags: Archives, explorer, freeware, utility, windows, Software
Reader Comments
I have been using it since last two years. \
very soon gonna be contribute to this utility as a developer
if my my changes are accepted by the owner of this proj.
Written by Arif Ali Saiyed on 03.02.09
Amit,
In Vista if you hover the mouse over the folder, the size should show up in a tooltip. If it doesn’t, click Organize, choose Folder and Search Options, click the View
tab, select “Display file size information in folder tips” and click OK.
Written by Ram on 03.03.09
Hi Ram,
Even in earlier version of windows also, folder size was displayed as tooltip when you hover mouse over the folder.
but folder size makes it different by adding another column in explorer’s detail view, “Folder Size”, this column shows folder’s size as well as files size..
When your systems starts , foldersize starts as service in background, sometime it slow down the machine , it was alredy busy doing something, in such case i turn off the service. It’s worth trying , it’s very useful when you are cleaning your system , deleting files wondering who has eaten up all your hard drive space, it provides quick view.
-Arif, Author
Process Manager for Windows
link
Written by Arif Ali Saiyed on 03.03.09
This is what I was looking for years..
Thanks Amit.
Written by Tech Thunder on 03.04.09