When it’s time to clean up your house, it’s easy to see right in front of you what needs to be done. If the floor is covered in pet hair, out comes the vacuum. Dishes piled up in your sink? It doesn’t take long to load them in the dishwasher or wash them by hand.
But what about keeping your computer clean and tidy? Not just the outside, but the insides where the real work gets done. Unfortunately, it’s a lot harder to see what’s making a big mess on your hard drive. Bits and bytes can’t be visualized quite as easily as pots and pans.
It’s possible to see how many gigabytes you have remaining on your hard drive. Windows can give you a quick overview, and can tell you how big any given file is when you hover over it. But it’s hard to visualize how much space you have just based on numbers.
It’s a lot easier just to see how much space you have left, and what is hogging most of the space. You’ll need a utility program to show you what it actually looks like, and I have just the thing.
WinDirStat is a handy program that scans your whole drive or individual partitions and folders and displays brightly colored squares of various sizes. It may look like a mess at first, but there’s a method to the madness.
The color of the square indicates what kind of file it is and the size indicates how much space it’s taking up. This is an easy, straightforward way to visualize exactly what’s taking up space on your disk and what’s slowing it down.
The first time you start WinDirStat up, it will automatically begin scanning a folder, a partition or an entire drive. You can then view or even delete files from within the program.
Note: But be warned! If you don’t know what the file is, don’t delete it! You could be accidentally deleting crucial files. When in doubt, have your local tech guru or knowledgeable family member walk you through which files to delete.
Download Instructions
To install the program, navigate to the WinDirStat download page by clicking on my blue link button provided below. In the large green square in the center of the page, click the green text “FossHub” link.
You will be redirected to an external download site for WinDirStat. Just above the ad in the middle of the page is a light blue bar with a blue text link labeled “Download WinDirStat Windows Installer.” Click on it to begin the download.
Note: This is a free download and will not ask you for your credit card or for payment of any kind. If a program is asking you for money, stop the installation immediately because you have clicked the wrong download button.
Your download should begin immediately. When the download is complete, open and run the installation file.
Be sure to read the license agreement before continuing. Remember, you should always read the fine print on anything you download to your computer!
I recommend using the default installation settings. There are no add-on programs or bloatware that you need to avoid. If you want to change the options for a full installation with all the bells and whistles, you can change the installation option in the drop-down menu during installation.
When the installation is complete, WinDirStat will run automatically. It will ask which drives you want to scan, and display the relevant information.