Fileusage is a freeware program that provides up to four extra columns within Window’s explorer ‘detail’ view that show total size for files and folders and files, total number of files within each folder, and total percentage disk usage for each file/folder.
This program is similar to Folder Size in that it displays the size of folders in Windows explorer (which, in case you haven’t noticed, Windows doesn’t do on its own).
This program can (optionally) also provide 3 other columns; you can elect to add any one or all of these four to your ‘detail’ folder view.
Here’s a quick summary of all four columns Fileusag can provide (note that all of these columns are sortable in Windows Explorer for quick reference):
- “Total Size” column: displays the size in kilobytes of both files and folder
- “Total Files” column: displays a count of the number of files within the folder
- “Total Usage”: shows percentage disk usage (i.e. size) for all files and folders relative to all files on the hard drive.
- “Parent Usage”: shows percentage disk usage (i.e. size) across all files/folders relative to all files within that particular folder only.
How to use this program: After installing, open any folder explorer window to ‘details’ view, right click on the column header, uncheck the original ’size’, check any or all of the new ‘Total Size’, ‘Total Files’, ‘Total Usage’, and ‘Parent Usage’ columns, depending on what you want to be dsiplayed, then move those column to where you want them to be. If you want this to apply to all of your folders go to the tools menu, folder options, ‘view’ tab and click on ‘apply to all folders’.
I should also mention that Fileusage provides a mechanism whereby you can switch it on or off without having to remove these columns from the folder view, which is useful for when you would like to temporarily speed up working with folders if you don’t want Fileusage to grab their info.
Fileusage promises “lightweight operation – no heavy in memory caching of all of the 65,000 files on your hard disk”. Indeed I am very happy with its performance, althought I am not sure how its performance compares to “Folder Size”. In any case I am now using Fileusage instead of that one because I like the extra columns that it can provide. I have found the ‘Total Files’ column in particular to be very useful.
Version tested: 1.1.3
Compatibility: Windows 2000, 2003, or XP. Requires Microsoft .NET framework.
The program page no longer exists, but you can download ver. 1.1.3 of the program here.
