Try Disk Usage, a new tool to analyze hard drive space on Windows 10

Microsoft is creating a built-in Disk Usage command line utility to report how much disk space a folder uses.

Over time, it's common to run out of storage space and not know which programs or files are using up hard drive space. Previously, users needed to download free tools like TreeSize to list the directories using the most space.

While testing with the new Windows 10 Insider versions 20277 and 21277 released last week, some people have found out that Microsoft has quietly introduced the new Disk Usage utility. This utility can scan your entire drive or specified folders and report how many each folder is in use.

Disk Usage, a new tool to analyze hard drive space on Windows 10

Disk Usage is located in C:WindowsSystem32diskusage.exe and will display the user guide when entering diskusage /? , as shown below.

This program is in the early stages of development, some features are not working as expected and there are some typos in the user manual.

For those interested, here is the complete manual:

DiskUsage - Disk Usage Description: Summarize disk usage recursively for the given directory. Usage : diskusage [Options] [Directory] Options : /a, /systemAndReserve displays size for system files and reserved space /c, /csv displays in csv format /d, /maxDepth=N displays directory information only if it is N or fewer levels below command line argument /e, /minFileSize=SIZE displays directory information only if its FileSize is greater or equal than SIZE /f, /minSizeOnDisk=SIZE displays directory information only if its SizeOnDisk is greater or equal than SIZE /g, /displayFlag=FLAG specifies the flags value to determin which column(s) to display column value description SizeOnDisk 0x001 the on disk size FileSize 0x002 the end of file size SizePerDir 0x004 sum of SizeOnDisk for top level child Files 0x008 number of child files ChildDirs 0x010 number of child directories FilesPerDir 0x020 number of top level child files DirsPerDir 0x040 number of top level child directories CreationTime 0x080 file creation timestamp LastAccessTime 0x100 file last access timestamp LastWriteTime 0x200 file last write timestamp Attributes 0x400 file attributes /h, /humanReadable displays size in human readable format /i, /iniFile=FILE takes all the parameters from an INI file. NOTE: SCENARIO name must be speificed via /j (/scenario) /j, /secnario=SCENARIO specifies the scenario name for the INI file /l, /allLinks count all hardlinks separately (By default, files with multiple hardlinks are counted only once towards the first link name) /m, /multipleName count only files with more than one link names /n, /nameFilter=FILTER count only files whose name matches the name filter /p, /preferredPath=PATH count files with multiple link names towards the first link that's under PATH if it exists NOTE: This options must not be specified togerther with /l (/allLinks) /q, /virtual recurse into virtual directories /r, /skipReparse skip recursing into reparse directories /s, /skipResurse skip recursing into child directories when calculating sizes /t, /TopDirectory=N displays Top N directories by SizeOnDisk in descending order /u, /TopFile=N displays Top N files by SizeOnDisk in descending order /v, /verbose displays verbose error information /x, /clearDefault do not display the default selected columns

Try a new Disk Usage utility

Microsoft's new Disk Usage tool is in the early stages of development, so it's pretty basic. Let's see how it works.

By default, when running Disk Usage, it will report file and folder sizes in bytes, which is not as useful as displaying the size in MB, GB, etc. Thankfully, Microsoft has included the argument. a / h to display the amount of human readable capacity. used in the examples below.

When I ran this test on a virtual machine, for example there was not much data or large programs installed, so I tested it with the C: Windows directory .

Since this tool requires administrative privileges, you must first open Command Prompt with admin privileges on Windows 10 before using diskusage.exe, otherwise it will show an error.

To view folders in C: Windows that are larger than 1GB, for example run the following command:

diskusage /minFileSize=1073741824 /h c:windows

As you can see below, Disk Usage has listed all folders, including the C: Windows folder, which is larger than 1GB.

Disk Usage also includes a feature that lists the top N (number) folders on the drive or in a specified directory. To do this, use the command / t = [number] as follows:

diskusage /t=5 /h c:windows

Unfortunately, the output of this command is not as expected. As you can see below, it shows an ordered list of 5 folders, but based on the previous commands, they are not the directories that the example expected.

We guessed that the above command shows the largest directories, without looking at the files in their subdirectories.

Disk Usage also includes other features such as listing the files with the largest capacity using the / u option , as shown in the following command:

diskusage /u=5 /h c:windows

As you can see below, instead of displaying the 5 largest folders, Disk Usage displays the 5 largest files.

Other features included in Disk Usage include creating a configuration file that contains the options you want to use automatically, customizing the output, and the ability to ignore different types of folders.

As mentioned before, Disk Usage is still in its infancy and there's no word on when it will officially appear. You can test it out now by installing the latest Windows 10 Insider builds.

Lesley Montoya

Update 16 December 2020