In this case it is advisable to find the larger files on the disk and move them to another storage device or delete them to free up disk space.
Related article: Perform Disk Cleanup to free up space.
Finding manually large files on disk can take a lot of time and effort.
To avoid this, you can follow the simple steps below that can help you find the large files in your system easily and effortlessly.
First of all check the size of the folders you usually store files on your computer.
To check the size of a folder:
1. Open File Explorer and explore the contents of the “C:\Users\Username” folder.
2. Right-click on each of the folders mentioned above and select Properties.
3. Look in the ‘Size’ tab to find the size of the folder.
Find the largest files of a folder.
Now go ahead and find the largest files contained in a folder, by performing the following actions:
3. This will list all the files on the disk in descending order of size.
Since the above procedure may not help you and takes a lot of time because you have to open each folder and subfolder separately to see the size of each file, below we show you some easier methods to find the large files on the -entire hard disk (in all folders and subfolders).
How to easily find out what are the largest files on disk or on the entire Windows computer.
Method 1: Search for Large Files using Explorer.
Method 2: Find Larger Files with the Larger Files Finder app.
View the largest files with the File Size Tree app.
Find Large Files from the Command Prompt.
Method 1: Search for Larger Files using File Explorer.
Using the file explorer you can quickly find the Large files on your system as follows:
1. Open File Explorer and select This PC from the left side to find the largest files on the entire computer, or double-click on any disk drive to find the largest files on it.
b. Select Group by and select Size and Descendants.
3. Click on the Search box and type the following (in bold) and press Enter:
size: gigantic to find all files larger than 4GB
size: huge to find files all files from 1-4 GB
size: large to find files with size 128MB – 1GB
* Note: After the end of the search, you can easily choose the size of the files you want to find, in the Search Tool > Size options.
4. When the search is complete, you will be able to see the largest files on your disk in descending order.
Method 2: Find Large Files with the Largest Files Finder application.
The Largest File Finder is a popular free application that directly finds the Top 100 largest files on your PC and claims to be able to scan a 200 GB disk in 60 seconds.
1. Download the Akbar File Finder application from their official website to avoid any risk.
The application is only 650KB in size so you can quickly download and install it on your PC.
2. This allows you to list all large files, along with their File name, folder location, file size, and also the file date modified.
Method 3: Find Larger Files on Windows with a Free TreeSize Application.
Another popular application for viewing the largest files on Windows is TreeSize Free.
3. After the download is complete, double click on “TreeSizeFreeSetup.exe” and proceed to install the application on your PC.
4. Open the TreeSize Free application and, if you want, select Return as administrator to access folders that require administrator rights to be scanned.
5. TreeSize free will find and show you which folders on your disk take the largest size on the disk..
6. Open each folder to identify which are the largest files on it.
Method 4: Find Largest Files Using Command Prompt.
If you are a fan of commands, you can use the command line to search and find large files on your disk.
2. Type cmd and press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER keys to open Command Prompt as Administrator.
* e.g. if you want to search for the largest files in disk C, type:
forfiles /S /M * /C “cmd /c if @fsize GEQ
2. Where is the size of the files you want to search, in bytes.
Example 1: If you want to generate a list containing the names of files greater than or equal to 1GB (1000MB = 1024 x 1024 x1024 = 1073741824 bytes), and export this list to a TXT file (eg largefiles.txt) on id -drive C:, issue this command:
forfiles /S /M * /C “cmd /c if @fsize GEQ 1073741824 echo @path” > largefiles.txt
Example 2: To find all files larger than 100MB (100x1024x1204=104857600 bytes), type:
forfiles /S /M * /C “cmd /c if @fsize GTR 104857600 echo @path” > largefiles.txt
These are some of the easiest methods to find large files on your Windows PC.
It is always a good practice to delete large files for more storage and better performance.
So next time, if you are running out of space on your computer, use any of the methods listed above to identify and delete large files.
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