I like to believe I have more than sufficient storage on my PC. A 2TB SSD and a 4TB HDD are not what you expect to see on a system with storage concerns. However, I wasrunning out of space on my SSD — I observed that the free space on the drive kept dropping every few weeks. At first, I checked the storage settings to see what was occupying all the space, and even manually checked the folders on all the partitions. After my search went nowhere, I saw fellow users mentioning WizTree on several Reddit posts. I have used third-party storage analyzers before, but WizTree is by far the best of the bunch.
I was sniffing out space hogs the old-fashioned way
In my defense, I hadn't done it in a while
These last few years, I've rarely been disciplined aboutcleaning up junk files on my SSDs. Whenever I need extra space to install a new game or download media from Google Photos to my PC, I just delete one or more older games that I haven't touched in a while. So, when I started observing the free space on my SSD going down regularly, I simply thought that it was finally time todelete temporary and cache files — the chickens had come home to roost.
I must have wasted around 30 minutes once every week over the last month trying to figure out which installer, browser cache file, or temp file was the culprit. First, I opened the Windows storage settings to get an overview. Needless to say, that was barely helpful. Next, I manually went into each of my drive partitions to find the largest files and folders — maybe I could delete unnecessary stuff that I had forgotten about long ago. The laborious and inefficient exercise yielded mixed results, and my problem was still the same. I was no closer to uncovering the mysterious space hogs wasting precious space on my SSD.
WizTree felt like a shot in the arm
You don't always know which space hogs to look for
WizTree looked like a barebones utility when I first installed and launched it. The moment I hit the "Scan" button on my C drive, however, the real magic of the tool was unveiled. In a matter of seconds, the entire partition was laid bare on the screen. Sorting the directory list by size, I could instantly see which files were occupying the most space on the partition. Some of the files and folders I noticed were expected — pagefile.sys, hiberfil.sys, and browser cache. Others were a surprise — Cinebench files, Microsoft Flight Simulator cache, and old CapCut videos that I had forgotten about.
The transformational thing about WizTree is that it instantly alerts you about files and folders you would otherwise never look for. The visual treemap below the directory list displays each file and folder on the scanned partition as a block of color. The largest blocks correspond to the biggest files and folders. I was delighted to spot around 20GB of compressed photos and videos of my Dubai trip that I had downloaded last year — after unzipping them, I had forgotten to delete the archive files. A massive red block helped me clear 20GB of space by deleting files that I never even knew were still there on my SSD.
It's better than WinDirStat & other alternatives
Blazing-fast scanning is awesome
I rememberusing WinDirStat occasionally a few years ago, but my experience with WizTree was miles ahead. Firstly, the UI looks better on WizTree. The directory list, treemap, and extension-wise file list are present on WinDirStat as well, but WizTree displays the partition drop-down and Scan button on the main screen itself. Besides, I can see the total space, used space, and free space on the main screen as well. The biggest impact, however, is WizTree's scan speed. Instead of wasting minutes of my time scanning a single partition, WizTree does it in a second or two.
WizTree accesses MFT, the Master File Table, a pre-made index of every file and folder on an NTFS drive. This helps it blow WinDirStat and other storage analyzers out of the water when it comes to speed. You can delete unwanted files from the program itself — no need to open the respective file or folder in Explorer. You can easily sort files based on the extension in the top right panel, helpful when you're looking for old, forgotten ZIP files or MP4 videos.
The old ways of finding junk files are gone
WizTree makes it unbelievably easy to find out the worst offenders when it comes to wasted space on your SSD. If you're also wondering where the free space on your drive keeps disappearing, there's no better tool than WizTree to get you the answers. Instead of wasting precious time manually finding junk files to delete, WizTree scans your drive in seconds and shows you a visual map of the stuff you can get rid of to reclaim your SSD space.
