Best Free Software Wiztree 3.19

www.snipca.com/27368 What you need: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8/8.1 or 10

In Issue 524’s Cover Feature, we looked at how to manage your PC’S storage and, whether you’re looking to free up more space or just get a clearer picture of the contents of your PC, Wiztree is one tool you should definitely consider. This brilliant program can analyse your PC’S storage and show you exactly which files and folders are taking up the most space.

Because it reads the master file table (MFT) directly from your hard drive, Wiztree is able to scan your storage very quickly. It offers a visual treemap – a colour-coded graph showing the contents of your drive that lets you see large files at a glance.

A recent update added the ability to export useful reports that you can keep for reference or use to get help from someone. Other recently added features include the option to save the treemap as a PNG file and the ability to select all the files in a particular format in one go.

Wiztree is free, though its developers do ask for a voluntary donation. You can use the tool without giving any money, but you will have to put up with a small Donate button in the top-right corner, which occasionally wobbles slightly.

Windows may show a Smartscreen warning when you download Wiztree, but it’s safe to install, so ignore these. If you prefer, there’s also a portable version of Wiztree that you can run without having to install anything. Click the Portable Zip link on the web page above, then extract the contents of the downloaded ZIP file.

1 Click Scan, then click a square in the treemap to see what’s taking up the most space. More details – including the file name, location and size – are highlighted in the Tree View pane.

2 To export information about specific files, click the file in the Tree View or the treemap, then click File and select ‘Export to .CSV file…’. Browse to a save location, click Save, then OK.

3 To export information about the entire contents of your drive, scroll to the very top of the Tree View and click your drive then export (see 2 ). To save the treemap, click File, then ‘Save Treemap Image as.png file’.

4 To select all the files of a specific type, make sure the File Types pane is visible (if not click Options, Show File Types), then right-click a file type – JPG files, for example – and click Select.