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How do I get folders to order by their content size in Windows Vista?

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  • Just a warning: it can take a long time to recursively get the size of all subfolders, and this can really slow down your computer. Sep 18, 2009 at 4:53
  • @MatthewTalbert, yes and that is one of the excuses I’ve heard of why Microsoft doesn’t include a built-in column for this, but that’s why you set something like that to off by default and allow the user to enable it instead of just preventing it altogether.
    – Synetech
    Mar 1, 2013 at 14:39

5 Answers 5

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While Windows Explorer doesn't allow to sort files by folder size, all is not lost.

Meet Folder Size Browser, a nifty little utility that does what it says on the tin.

i can't vouch for Vista but since it works in Windows 7, it should do so in Vista.

enter image description here

Folder Size Browser is free and portable.

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Unfortunately, in default Explorer, there is no way to order by the size of a folder.

I have not done it in years, but for XP I used this free addon, but I have no idea if it is still compatible and works with Vista.

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Total commander has this built in

  • menu Configuration -> Options, go to Display settings and for Sorting Directories select "Like files"
  • make sure you are showing full info (menu Show -> Full)
  • click on Size column button (default sorts from biggest to smallest, click again to reverse it)
  • press Alt+Shift+Enter and wait for the directories to be scanned, depending on the size it could take a while

Result will be all directories showing cumulative size of all the files in them (including in all subdirectories)

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  • Looks like it's still a Windows 3.1 application. Works exactly how you described in Windows 7 though!
    – gak
    Jul 19, 2012 at 9:39
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For viewing disk usage I prefer Steffen Gerlach's Scanner, for its innovative and visual pie display:

alt text

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Something perhaps more powerful than a folder size utility is Space Sniffer. It's free; it works in Windows 7, so presumably works in Vista too. It allows you to quckly drill down to large files and folders.

enter image description here

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