Help!!! How can I view folder sizes in view details?

This is something that has puzzled me for ages. I open a directory which has some sub-directories and some stand-alone files. I do view details. The file sizes are displayed, but the folder sizes are not displayed. In order to find a folder that doesn't match size with the source, I have to go through the painfully tedious task of right clicking and selecting properties on each folder. With XP, there was a tool I installed which allowed me to display the folder size, but the tool doesn't work in Windows 7.

Is there a way one can easily view the folder sizes without having to right click and select properties for each individual folder?

Callender said:

Just use:

GetFoldersize - View Disk Usage, Calculate Disk Space

This appears to run as a separate application. That's just as tedious as right clicking and selecting properties. The Mindgems application Folder Size - when used with XP - allowed you to display folder size when in the view details mode. But it no longer does that in Windows 7.

Let's say you've got two directories on different drives. Each has 30 folders in them. But they don't match. Rather than right click and select properties to find the culprit folder, one would ideally select view details and skim through the folder sizes - just as they would if it were stand alone files.

Any other ideas?

Callender said:

Just use Q-Dir then. It works pretty well. It's still a third party program that won't integrate with Explorer. I just run it from a submenu that opens when I press a hotkey combination.

Download Q-Dir Portable - MajorGeeks



It can show up to four directories to be compared at the same time and display folder and file sizes in you configure the settings.




As far as I know what you ask for is not possible. I've spent some time in the past attempting to find a way to get folder sizes to display in Windows Explorer in 7. Everything I see says that it can't be done.

Thanks! I'll give that a try. It looks as if this is about as close as I'll get to the way it was displayed in XP using Folder Size.

Saginaw said:

Let's say you've got two directories on different drives. Each has 30 folders in them. But they don't match. Rather than right click and select properties to find the culprit folder, one would ideally select view details and skim through the folder sizes - just as they would if it were stand alone files.

Any other ideas?

Two products you might try (both of which have 30-day free trials for the paid versions):

(1) Treesize (which is available for free, or you can opt for a paid version with additional functionality). This product is a straightforward perspective on drives, folders, files, etc., and provides everything you want to see.

(2) Beyond Compare. This product will address your particular request, which is to "find those folders that don't match" when comparing two directories (and all sub-folders below) on different drives (or anywhere or course). Features include "equal" or "not equal" mode, so that you can show everything including differences, or just the differences. You can then easily "expand" the folder view to show everything in the tree-view or just the differences in the tree-view below the top-level folder. Color coding of the compare results make it very obvious exactly what the differences are. And you can then automatically "synchronize" either side to the other side in a variety of ways (copy, move, update, mirror). Compare of files is also supported, both text and binary (including JPG, etc.).


Both have options to add extensions to the Explorer right-click context menus, to invoke the functionality of the products.

dsperber said:

Saginaw said:

Let's say you've got two directories on different drives. Each has 30 folders in them. But they don't match. Rather than right click and select properties to find the culprit folder, one would ideally select view details and skim through the folder sizes - just as they would if it were stand alone files.

Any other ideas?

Two products you might try (both of which have 30-day free trials for the paid versions):

(1) Treesize (which is available for free, or you can opt for a paid version with additional functionality). This product is a straightforward perspective on drives, folders, files, etc., and provides everything you want to see.

(2) Beyond Compare. This product will address your particular request, which is to "find those folders that don't match" when comparing two directories (and all sub-folders below) on different drives (or anywhere or course). Features include "equal" or "not equal" mode, so that you can show everything including differences, or just the differences. You can then easily "expand" the folder view to show everything in the tree-view or just the differences in the tree-view below the top-level folder. Color coding of the compare results make it very obvious exactly what the differences are. And you can then automatically "synchronize" either side to the other side in a variety of ways (copy, move, update, mirror). Compare of files is also supported, both text and binary (including JPG, etc.).


Both have options to add extensions to the Explorer right-click context menus, to invoke the functionality of the products.

Thanks! Will Treesize allow me to view folder sizes - just as I can view file sizes - when selecting view details in a Windows 7 directory?

Beyond Compare looks good. Will it resolve the copying issues which I've described at Folder sizes do not match after successful backup

Saginaw said:

Thanks! Will Treesize allow me to view folder sizes - just as I can view file sizes - when selecting view details in a Windows 7 directory?

Don't know exactly why you need to use Windows "details view", since it's really a bit clumsy.

If you right-click on something in Explorer you have an item on the context menu which if you click on it will launch Treesize for this item.

For example, here's what the context menu looks like, with the Treesize item:



And if I select that item here is what the launched Treesize window looks like (again, just one example of what Treesize can present):

Beyond Compare looks good. Will it resolve the copying issues which I've described at Folder sizes do not match after successful backup

Again, you'll have to try it for yourself.

But here is a typical example of comparing two folders I have on two machines that are intended to hold the same type of information, but don't actually have identical contents. This is the "expanded" view showing JUST THE DIFFERENCES (i.e. with all folders/files that are identical suppressed). I could alternatively have shown EVERYTHING, with the differences highlighted via color coding to contrast them with the items that are identical. Also, there are comparison settings (for example) to take into account time-zone changes or DST/STD differences and treat them as "equal".