Visual disk-space explorer with an interactive treemap, file-age filtering, and customizable reports. TreeSize Free Disk Analyzer scans NTFS drives in seconds and reveals exactly what is consuming your storage.
TreeSize Free Disk Analyzer scans any NTFS drive or folder using the Master File Table for near-instant results, or falls back to conventional crawling for non-NTFS volumes. Results appear in a hierarchical tree that resembles Windows Explorer with an extra dimension — each folder shows its total size, allocated space, file count, and percentage of the parent. The built-in treemap visualizes the entire scan as colored rectangles proportional to folder size, letting you spot space-hogging directories at a glance.
Filtering is where TreeSize Free shines. You can isolate files by age — files older than 180 days, files from the last 24 hours, or any custom range — and by type through a file-group classification system. The export function generates PDF, HTML, or Excel reports for documentation or stakeholder presentation. TreeSize Free runs portably from a USB stick, requires no installation, and can be launched from the context menu of any folder in Windows Explorer after a one-time shell-integration setup.
| Function | Description |
|---|---|
| MFT-Based Scanning | Read NTFS Master File Table directly for scan speeds of seconds on any drive size |
| Hierarchical Tree | Explorer-like view with size, allocated space, files, and percentage columns |
| Treemap Visualization | Color-coded rectangle chart proportional to folder sizes; click to drill down |
| File-Age Filter | Display only files created or modified within a user-defined time window |
| File-Type Groups | Categorize space usage by file extension groups — images, videos, archives, etc. |
| Duplicate Search | Find duplicate files by name, size, or MD5 hash to reclaim wasted space |
| Report Export | Generate PDF, HTML, Excel, or plain-text reports with the full scan breakdown |
| Portable Mode | Run without installation from a USB drive or network share on any Windows PC |
- Download TreeSizeFree.exe or the portable zip. Run TreeSizeFree.exe as administrator for full MFT access.
- Select the C: drive from the home screen or click Select Directory to scan a specific folder.
- Wait for the scan to complete (typically 5-15 seconds for a 1 TB SSD). Browse the hierarchical tree.
- Switch to the Treemap tab for a visual overview and click colored blocks to drill into large folders.
- Use the Filter bar to limit the view to files older than 90 days or larger than 1 GB.
Run a TreeSize Free scan once a month to catch disk balloons before Windows throws a low-space warning. When a colleague complains their laptop is slow, scan the Users folder and identify stale browser caches, temp files, and old downloads eating 40 GB. Use the age filter to surface files not touched in the last two years — these are prime candidates for archival or deletion.
A. SSD Space Crisis — A 256 GB boot SSD is down to 8 GB free. TreeSize scan reveals that the AppData\Local\Temp folder alone holds 55 GB of stale Visual Studio build artifacts. Selective cleanup recovers 50 GB in minutes.
B. Server Storage Audit — IT scans a file server's 8 TB shared drive. The treemap makes it obvious that the Marketing department's video raw-footage folder accounts for 60% of total usage — triggering a conversation about archiving.
C. Migration Planning — Before migrating users from on-prem file shares to SharePoint, scan all user folders. The file-age filter identifies files unchanged since 2019 for bulk archival rather than migration.
D. Backup Validation — After a full image backup, scan both the source and the restored image with TreeSize Free. Compare total file count and size to verify the restore captured every byte.
- OS: Windows 7 or newer (x86/x64) — Windows 10/11 recommended for fastest MFT scanning
- RAM: 100 MB for typical disk scans
- Storage: 15 MB for the portable executable
- Permissions: Administrator rights recommended for full MFT access and scanning protected system folders
- Scan reports Used Space but Size column is empty — the application lacks administrator rights. Relaunch TreeSize Free as administrator for full access to all folders and accurate size data.
- MFT scan not working on specific drive — the volume may be FAT32, exFAT, or a network share. TreeSize falls back to conventional scanning automatically but at slower speed.
- Treemap shows one giant rectangle with no detail — the largest folder dominates the view. Right-click and choose Open in TreeSize to zoom into that folder exclusively.
- Duplicate search takes hours — MD5 hashing of every file is I/O intensive. Start with a name-and-size search first, then narrow the MD5 check to a specific folder or file group.
- Export report is missing columns — configure the visible columns in the main window before exporting. The export reflects whatever columns are currently active in the tree view.
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