WinDirStat — The Complete Guide: A Visual Disk Map to Find Huge Model and Result Files
WinDirStat is an open-source Windows tool that scans a drive or folder and shows space usage as a coloured treemap. Every large file stands out immediately as a large rectangle. For simulation and CAD engineers this is essential: result folders, element meshes and backups quickly take up hundreds of gigabytes.
WinDirStat
WinDirStat team
A visual map of disk usage — find huge model, mesh and result files that are filling the drive.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Coloured treemap — rectangle size by file size, colour by type.
- Sorted folder tree — see at once which folder is the heaviest.
- Search — by name, size or file type.
- Duplicate detection — by file content, not just by name.
- CSV export — a list to check in a spreadsheet or report on.
Clean-up tip
After a simulation, intermediate files and per-time-step results are usually the big rectangles. Before deleting, archive what must be kept and leave only the final results. A portable version that runs without installation is also available.
Related tools
For very fast scans of large drives — WizTree. To find files by name in seconds — Everything. To manage the files themselves — Double Commander.
WizTree
Antibody Software
An extremely fast disk-space analyser — finds huge model, mesh and result files in seconds.
Get it from the vendorTreeSize Free
JAM Software
Shows which folders take up disk space, right from the Explorer menu — for private, non-commercial use only.
Get it from the vendorEverything
voidtools
Instant file search by name across the whole PC — find the latest revision of a drawing buried in project folders.
Get it from the vendor
Double Commander
Double Commander team
Two-pane file manager in the Total Commander style — batch rename, archives, content search and FTP.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
WinDirStat answers in a minute the question of where all the disk space went. Open source and free for any use.