The fastest way to free disk space is to delete large files and folders on your PC. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to find them satisfactorily with the built-in tools Windows 10/11 provides.
Since Windows doesn’t provide any tool to help users filter all folders, files, or programs by size, you need to use the apps TreeSize Free to help you find large folders and Everything to help you find large files.
I will tell you next how to use each one of these apps to free up disk space on your PC.
(If you want to know which programs take up the most space on your PC, I’ve also written an article about that.)
Finding Large Files and Folders on Windows with TreeSize Free
The best way to find the largest folders and files on your disk is by using TreeSize Free. TreeSize Free is one of the must-have software for Windows since it is a free and light program that helps you quickly filter the folders in each directory by size.
Here is how you use it to find large files and folders on Windows 10/11:
- Download TreeSize Free and install it on your PC:
You can opt to download a portable version if you don’t want to install it on your PC. - Launch TreeSize Free and click on the Select Directory button to see a list of any Directory with all the folders sorted by size:
- Click the arrow > on the left side of a folder’s icon to expand it.
- When you find a folder that is occupying too much space, right-click on the folder and select Open in New Tab to view it in explorer:
- Delete the big files you don’t need.
This is a quick and safe method, but do not delete anything in the Windows folder if you don’t know what you are doing. Those are system files, and deleting them might ruin your Windows.
If you want only to find the largest files on your PC but don’t care about the folders, there is an even faster method, as I explain below.
(TreeSize Free is an essential software if you have low disk space or if you are planning to use Windows 10 or 11 on a 128SSD GB laptop.)
How to Locate Big Files on Windows 11 using Everything
The app Everything was developed to search files faster on Windows (and it delivers). However, Everything also happens to be a great alternative to TreeSize Free when finding the largest files on Windows 11.
The advantage of using Everything is that it finds large files even faster than TreeSize Free. The downside is that it is not as organized as TreeSize Free and doesn’t show folder size.
Here is how to find big files immediately on Windows 11 using Everything:
- Download Everything and install it on your PC:
You can also select Download Portable Zip if you want to avoid installing it in Windows. - Launch Everything and wait for a second as it loads all your files.
- Now click on Size to show the files from largest to smallest:
- Delete the huge files you don’t need.
If you want to open the folder where a file is located, right-click on a file and click on Open Path.
Remember to pay attention to the file path when deleting files to avoid accidentally deleting a system file from the Windows folder.
(If you want to know about large system files that you can delete, check my articles on how to delete temporary files safely and if it is safe to delete windows memory dump .dmp files)
Conclusion
The quickest way to find large folders and files on your Windows 11 PC is TreeSize Free. If you want only to find big files, you can try Everything, which also happens to be much superior to Windows Search.
Even though deleting big files is the quickest and easiest way to free disk space, there are others. Deleting useless programs is essential to free up disk space and your PC resources.
If you want to save hours of your time when uninstalling programs, check out this article on how to uninstall multiple programs at once.
