No total folder size in Windows 7

[Northern Lawn]

Not to be confused with total FILE size.

I was just tweaking my settings and wanted total folder size shown in explorer and found there are hundreds of options but NOT folder file size..

Man what's up with that?

[postmortemIA]

that computation for each folder has a performance hit.

[imagoon]

Use windirstat. It will scan the drive and give you that information. It just takes time based on the number of files. I have seen it take 10-15 minutes on large disks.

Basically if you wanted that in explorer, every time you opened a window you would have to wait for the system to parse through every file in the directories below it causeing significant lag.

[DirkGently1]

ignore

[dave_the_nerd]

Yeah, they took that feature out. Have to view folder properties to see size.

Sucks.

[bbhaag]

Originally Posted by imagoon

Use windirstat. It will scan the drive and give you that information. It just takes time based on the number of files. I have seen it take 10-15 minutes on large disks.

I found this program a couple days ago and it is awesome. I had something slowly eating away disk size and I couldn't find out what. Windirstat showed me what it was and then googling showed me how to fix the problem.

[corkyg]

What's the big deal about viewing it in Folder properties? The total folder size is there - a simple right click-left click away.

[Auric]

Just use a proper file manager.

[Ferzerp]

Originally Posted by Auric

Just use a proper file manager.

As others have stated, the size of a folder is only available via crawling that folder. This is a process that should always require some sort of manual intervention to start.

[Northern Lawn]

I figured it might be like when you do a search of a hard drive and it has to index, but once the index is done, isn't it almost instant? you'd think it would be the same for folder size if the folders hasn't been opened.

But performance hit, I get it.

[colonelciller]

Originally Posted by corkyg

What's the big deal about viewing it in Folder properties? The total folder size is there - a simple right click-left click away.

this is a HUGE deal when you have a backup disk that you manually update... especially when you have nested folders and you save files to several different folders.

That they took this out is a testament to the dumbing down of the OS in a (pathetic in my mind) attempt to make windows look more snappy.

Fine to leave it off by default, just have a toggle button to activate folder sizes in explorer... and then have that toggle button "invisible" by default (only to be made visible by navigation to a buried settings menu). That would protect the Microsoft desire to make the computer look snappy when exploring for the uninformed and it would enable the educated user to control his/her computer as he/she sees fit.

[colonelciller]

Originally Posted by Auric

Just use a proper file manager.

can you recommend a good file manager that is:

• completely off (no extra processes or services) except when manually activated (launching the program)
• drag and drop functionality
• question prompts when attempting to overwrite Folders and Files along with size and date summary info in the prompt for good decision making
• Folder Sizes displayed

The situation with Explorer and no folder sizes is so bad that I end up formatting my backup data drive before making a new backup. Not a happy camper about that. :/

[colonelciller]

hundreds and hundreds of folders + "right clicking" to check folder sizes is fail

[corkyg]

Take a look at ZTreeWin. I have used it for years. It is a very powerful file manager - folder sizes can be seen simply by scrolling through them at any level.

http://www.ztree.com/html/ztreewin.htm

Of course, the old DOS GUI might cause some users to panic.

[Zxian]

Originally Posted by colonelciller

this is a HUGE deal when you have a backup disk that you manually update... especially when you have nested folders and you save files to several different folders.

That they took this out is a testament to the dumbing down of the OS in a (pathetic in my mind) attempt to make windows look more snappy.

Fine to leave it off by default, just have a toggle button to activate folder sizes in explorer... and then have that toggle button "invisible" by default (only to be made visible by navigation to a buried settings menu). That would protect the Microsoft desire to make the computer look snappy when exploring for the uninformed and it would enable the educated user to control his/her computer as he/she sees fit.

Question - why are you manually updating your backup disk? You can save yourself a LOT of time by either using one of the many software options or by writing a script to handle and manage your backups for you. I used to have a script that would create a rolling weekly archive for all of my important documents. I may not be understanding your scenario properly, but it sounds like you're putting more effort into this than you need to.

Folders are just containers (specifically, they're delimited file paths). Folders do not have a size. The sum of the size of all the files within the folder determines the "Folder Size". If you've got a folder that contains several hundred files and two files have changed in filesize, but the sum total is the same, how do you tell the difference based on "folder size" alone? Your files contain the data. Make sure you're backing up the proper versions of the files and the folders themselves become meaningless (as long as your backup solution preserves relative file paths).

Or you could just use git.

[colonelciller]

Originally Posted by corkyg

Take a look at ZTreeWin. I have used it for years. It is a very powerful file manager - folder sizes can be seen simply by scrolling through them at any level.

http://www.ztree.com/html/ztreewin.htm

Of course, the old DOS GUI might cause some users to panic.

thank you, I'll give it a look

[colonelciller]

Originally Posted by Zxian

Question - why are you manually updating your backup disk? You can save yourself a LOT of time by either using one of the many software options or by writing a script to handle and manage your backups for you. I used to have a script that would create a rolling weekly archive for all of my important documents. I may not be understanding your scenario properly, but it sounds like you're putting more effort into this than you need to.

Folders are just containers (specifically, they're delimited file paths). Folders do not have a size. The sum of the size of all the files within the folder determines the "Folder Size". If you've got a folder that contains several hundred files and two files have changed in filesize, but the sum total is the same, how do you tell the difference based on "folder size" alone? Your files contain the data. Make sure you're backing up the proper versions of the files and the folders themselves become meaningless (as long as your backup solution preserves relative file paths).

Or you could just use git.

probably I should move up to a software option... scripting is beyond my knowledge level.

[GrumpyMan]

I use Q-Directory myself.