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FOLDER SIZE - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

HOW TO SCAN FOLDER SIZES ON YOUR COMPUTER

Below you will find the most frequently asked questions.

Click the question that you are interested in to scroll to the answers section. You can also use the search functionality in the web browser to find a particular keyword on the page.

Do not forget to check also the blog area as it contains a lot of information, tutorials and examples and provides a search option for easier navigation: www.mindgems.com/article/

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Compatible with Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista (Both 32 & 64 Bit)

Folder Size Questions

Folder Size Answers


How to uninstall Folder Size?

Open Start Button->Settings->Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs. Select Folder Size from the list and click Change/Remove.

Why Folder Size does not scan the content of the Libraries folder in Windows 7?

Folder size currently will not scan sym-links as they are not real folders/files. Sym-links are actually references to files and folders that are located somewhere else. You can understand that if Folder Size lists the content of those links it will lead to incorrect results.

I do not see the charts in Folder Size. Why?

Versions of Folder Size prior to 4.0.0.0 used Adobe Flash for the charts. Adobe Flash is discontinued and the new versions of Folder Size no longer use it.

Versions of Folder Size 4.0.0.0 and newer use HTML 5 and Java Script for the charts. Make sure that you Internet Explorer version is updated and that Java Script is enabled.

Why Folder Size reports different used space for a drive than the one in properties of Windows Explorer?

If you have right-clicked a drive and used the properties dialog the size listed there may not be up to date. If you select all the files in the root of you drive and display the properties dialog the size displayed in Windows Explorer will be calculated and will be the same as the size reported by Folder Size.
Another possible reason is if you are using an account with limited privileges that does not have access to all the files and folders.

If you are using Restore Points, the most common reason for this is that the System Volume Information folder is not accessible by the Administrator account. It is set to be accessed only by the SYSTEM account. The latest version of Folder Size can list the files inside the backup folders, system folders and also the System Volume Information folder. In order to do this the application should be started with Administrator privileges. To do this either right-click the application and select "Run as Administrator" or use the toolbar button inside the Folder Size application in order to restart it as Administrator.

I want to find all the folders on my computer named 'test', but when I set this in the filter it does not work. Why?

The filter functionality works as a "Filter" not as "Find". If you set the filter to match only folders named 'test' this means that only folders named 'test' will be listed.

1. If you have a folder in your "C" drive named "test" then it will be listed as it will match the filter.
2. If you have another folder named "test" inside the folder "test" then it will be listed too.
3. If you have a folder in your "C" drive named "Folder1" and inside it a folder "test" then both folders will not be listed, because Folder Size will check first the name "Folder1" which does not match the filter and as it will not be listed at all it will skip all its content.

In other words the "Filter" functionality works properly, but it is not "Find". We will add a "Find" functionality in the upcoming releases.

What you can do to solve this issue:

Use the windows "Find" functionality to find all the folders named 'test'.
If you own the Professional version of Folder Size select all the items and drag and drop them inside Folder Size. This will list and scan all the items that were found inside Folder Size. Please note that if you right-click the selection and use "Scan with Folder Size" every folder will be loaded in a separate instance of Folder Size.

Please note that scanning multiple folders is available only in the Professional version of Folder Size. Please check the Folder Size feature comparison table here.

Won't read my Galaxy S3 (or other smart phone/tablet/device) as a drive?

A lot of devices as the Samsung Galaxy S3/S4/Kindle/HTC are not drives - they are not recognized as storage devices in windows.

The fact that they are displayed in Windows Explorer as such is due to the fact that a driver emulates such behavior only inside Windows Explorer. Your device will not be recognized as storage in any other application. Even if you double-click a picture in the device folders listed in Windows Explorer what happens in the background is that the picture is copied to a temp folder on your computer and displayed via your default image viewer.

This is not a limitation of Folder Size - it is a limitation of your Android device. While we would be glad to add support for such devices they do not provide the proper features for that.

Application reports Out Of Memory?

Our tools are extremely optimized in terms of memory and resource consumption, but if you are scanning a drive with many files/folders or multiple locations at once you may run out of memory,

You can run several instances of the tool to split your scan to smaller batches or if you are not interested in the file details a new option “Do not list files” is available in the settings. Using the option will dramatically reduce the memory usage and also improve scan performance.

Older versions of Folder Size prior to 4.0.0.0 are 32 bit and the information below applies to them:

There is a limit of 4GB per application in Windows 64bit and 2GB per application in 32bit Windows operating systems.

Please take a look here:
https://info.mindgems.com/windows-8-folder-size/

Does not see all mapped drives or network locations. Why?

Make sure that the user account that you use to start Folder Size has the proper rights to access the corresponding locations.

Please note that if you have used the "Restart with administrator privileges" button, the administrator account may not have access to those location so try using the tool without pressing that button in order to start it with the active account that you are logged in with.

You can also use the "Scan with Folder Size" context menu directly inside Windows Explorer on the corresponding network location or mapped drive.

How can I export a list of folders and folder sizes without also getting the file details from within those folders?

Go to options and tick "Do not list files" checkbox.

Run the scan and use File->Export to export the results in CSV or XML. The export format can be selected by changing the file type to XML or CSV at the bottom of the save dialog.

What to do if the application freezes on startup or starts slowly?

First of all, rest assured that all our tools are tested and working properly on ALL Windows systems. If you experience such issues they are either caused by third party applications or something is wrong with your system. Try the steps below to try to identify the problem:

  1. Make sure that a poor antivirus tool is not causing the issue. Check the antivirus tool logs or disable it temporarily and try to start the tool. Some antivirus tool will continue to function even if disabled so please try the next step if disabling does not work.
  2. Some third party applications may cause issues on your system. Try to disable all the startup applications, then restart your computer and try to run the tool. If it starts normally you can enable the startup applications one by one in order to identify which one is causing the issue. Please note that if a tool is causing an issue with our application it will probably cause issues with ALL other applications on your system.
  3. Some applications can not be stopped easily as they are not listed in the startup applications. They usually install services. If you are skilled enough, you can find and stop those services. An easier test is to restart your computer in SAFE MODE as in that mode only the standard Windows services will start and try to run the tool. If it is running normally then there is a startup service installed on your system that is causing the issue. Identify it and disable it.
  4. As the tool enumerates all your storage devices on startup in order to display them, a defective device or an incorrect mapped drive could cause the issue too. Make sure that all your drives are functioning properly and that they are accessible - open Windows Explorer and try to access them.
  5. Make sure that you are not using a poor all-in-one card reader attached to a USB port. Many of those card readers may cause issues if there is not card inside. Unplug the card reader and restart the application.
  6. Some poor drive shares are not listed in Windows Explorer. In order to view those use the Windows Shell.

    Press WIN+R and type CMD in the box and press ENTER.
    In the shell window that has opened type: net use (and press enter)
    if you see a bad share you have to remove it. For example if drive G: is not shared properly, you can remove it by typing: net use g: /delete
    Please note that the above does not delete your drive - it will delete the missing share which most likely is causing the issue.

If you had any startup or freeze issues and the cause was not listed above, or you identified an application that was causing issues please email our support team at: support@mindgems.com