**Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Even though today’s hard drives are larger and cheaper than ever, many people still find themselves filling them up since today’s files seem to be larger than ever as well. There are many apps out there that can scan your computer to find where your larger files are located but they can be a bit cumbersome to use. So, if you are trying to find what is using up your disk space, you will need some type of software to do so since Windows itself does not have any easy to use method to do so.
Fortunately, there is a free app you can use to quickly find the largest, smallest, newest, or oldest files on your computer. This way, you can simply tell the software what you are looking for and it will show you the results almost instantly.
The software we will be discussing in this article is called FRSFileList and can be downloaded from their website here. After you download the setup file and run it to begin the installation process, you may see a message from Microsoft Defender warning you that it is an unrecognized app. You can then click on More info and then the Run Anyway button to continue. Windows will do this when it doesn’t recognize the publisher of the software.
You can then install the software just like any other application by following along with the installation wizard. You will get to one screen where it asks you if you want to start the app at boot up. You will most likely want to leave this unchecked unless you will be using the app very frequently.
Once you open the FRSFileList app, you will notice how simple the interface is. All you need to do is choose if you want to view the largest, smallest, newest or oldest files from the dropdown. Then you can choose how may you want to see. For example, you can change the number in the Find the box to 25 to show the 25 largest files in the folder you are searching.
The image below shows the results for this type of search in the Documents folder. The app will also search in subfolders as you can see on line 9. You will also be shown the size of the files, their date and time and how old they are.
The box in the that says visible can be changed to visible and hidden, visible and system or visible, hidden and system depending on what type of files you want to see.
You can also filter the results by typing the file extension in the of type box. For example, if we type docx, which is the file extension for Word documents in the of type box, then we would only be shown Word files. You will also notice that we are shown less than 25 results because there are not 25 Word documents in this directory.
You do have several options when you right click on a file or files.
Here is what each option does.
Explore – This will open the folder that the file is located in within File Explorer.
Open – This is not used to open the actual file you are right clicking on itself but rather a program file such as an executable or batch file.
Delete – This will send the file or files to the Windows Recycle Bin. You can also restore them from the Recycle Bin if needed.
Copy – This will copy the path to the file such as C:\Users\todds\Documents\Invitation.docx rather than the file itself.
Select All – If you want to select all the results so you can do things such as delete the files or copy the file paths, you can use this option.
Print – You would think you could use this option to print one or more of the results, but we found it will only print the one result\line that you have selected, even if you select all the results.
Export – You can use this option to export the results to a text file.
The icons in the toolbar at the top of the application will allow you to perform similar types of actions. You can also see the same right click options by going to the Edit menu.
For additional training resources, check out our online IT training courses.
Check out our extensive IT book series.
