Windows OS Hub
  • Windows Server
    • Windows Server 2022
    • Windows Server 2019
    • Windows Server 2016
    • Windows Server 2012 R2
    • Windows Server 2012
    • Windows Server 2008 R2
    • SCCM
  • Active Directory
    • Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS)
    • Group Policies
  • Windows Clients
    • Windows 11
    • Windows 10
    • Windows 8
    • Windows 7
    • Windows XP
    • MS Office
    • Outlook
  • Virtualization
    • VMWare
    • Hyper-V
    • KVM
  • PowerShell
  • Exchange
  • Cloud
    • Azure
    • Microsoft 365
    • Office 365
  • Linux
    • CentOS
    • RHEL
    • Ubuntu
  • Home
  • About

Windows OS Hub

  • Windows Server
    • Windows Server 2022
    • Windows Server 2019
    • Windows Server 2016
    • Windows Server 2012 R2
    • Windows Server 2012
    • Windows Server 2008 R2
    • SCCM
  • Active Directory
    • Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS)
    • Group Policies
  • Windows Clients
    • Windows 11
    • Windows 10
    • Windows 8
    • Windows 7
    • Windows XP
    • MS Office
    • Outlook
  • Virtualization
    • VMWare
    • Hyper-V
    • KVM
  • PowerShell
  • Exchange
  • Cloud
    • Azure
    • Microsoft 365
    • Office 365
  • Linux
    • CentOS
    • RHEL
    • Ubuntu

 Windows OS Hub / PowerShell / PowerShell: Get Folder Sizes on Disk in Windows

August 17, 2021 PowerShellWindows 10Windows Server 2019

PowerShell: Get Folder Sizes on Disk in Windows

Most Windows users know that the easiest way to check the size of a folder is to open the folder properties in File Explorer. More experienced users prefer to use third-party tools like TreeSize or WinDirStat. However, if you want to get more detailed statistics on the size of folders in the specific directory or exclude certain file types, you’d better use the PowerShell features. In this article, we’ll show you how to quickly get the size of the specific folder on the disk (and all subfolders) using PowerShell.

You can use the Get-ChildItem (gci alias) and Measure-Object (measure alias) cmdlets to get the sizes of files and folders (including subfolders) in PowerShell. The first cmdlet allows you to get the list of files (with sizes) in the specified directory according to the specified criteria, and the second one performs arithmetic operations.

Tip. In one of the previous articles, we showed how to use the Get-ChildItem cmdlet in PowerShell to find the largest files on disk.

For example, to get the size of the C:\ISO folder, run the following command:

Get-ChildItem C:\ISO | Measure-Object -Property Length -sum

get-childrenitem - powershell - folder size

As you can see, the total size of files in this directory is shown in the Sum field and is about 2.1 GB (the size is given in bytes).

To convert the size into a more convenient MB or GB, use this command:

(gci c:\iso | measure Length -s).sum / 1Gb

Or:

(gci c:\iso | measure Length -s).sum / 1Mb

To round the result to two decimals, run the following command:

"{0:N2} GB" -f ((gci c:\iso | measure Length -s).sum / 1Gb)

PowerShell Calculating Folder Sizes - gci and measure sum

You can use PowerShell to calculate the total size of all files of a certain type in a directory. For example, you want to get the total size of all ISO files in a folder:

(gci c:\iso *.iso | measure Length -s).sum / 1Mb

get folder size in MB using powershell

The commands shown above allow you to get only the total size of files in the specified directory. If there are subfolders in the directory, the size of files in the subfolders won’t be calculated. To get the total size of files in the directory including subdirectories, use the –Recurse parameter. Let’s get the total size of files in the C:\Windows folder :

"{0:N2} GB" -f ((gci –force c:\Windows –Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue| measure Length -s).sum / 1Gb)

To take into account the size of hidden and system files, I have used the –force argument as well.

So the size of C:\Windows on my local drive is about 40 GB (script ignores NTFS compression).

Tip. In order to prevent directory access errors (PermissionDenied -> DirUnauthorizedAccessError), use the -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue parameter.

get c:\windows folder size using PowerShell

This script incorrectly calculates the size of a directory if it contains symbolic or hard links. For example, the C:\Windows folder contains many hard links to files in the WinSxS folder (Windows Component Store). As a result, such files can be counted several times. To ignore hard links in the results, use the following command (takes a long time to complete):

"{0:N2} GB" -f ((gci –force C:\windows –Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Where-Object { $_.LinkType -notmatch "HardLink" }| measure Length -s).sum / 1Gb)

get windows folder size without hardlinks

As you can see, the actual size of the Windows folder is slightly smaller.

You can use filters to select the files to consider when calculating the final size. For example, you can get the size of files created in 2020:

(gci -force c:\ps –Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | ? {$_.CreationTime -gt ‘1/1/20’ -AND $_.CreationTime -lt ‘12/31/20’}| measure Length -s).sum / 1Gb

You can get the size of all first-level subfolders in the specified directory. For example, you want to get the size of all user profiles in the folder C:\Users.

gci -force 'C:\Users'-ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | ? { $_ -is [io.directoryinfo] } | % {
$len = 0
gci -recurse -force $_.fullname -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | % { $len += $_.length }
$_.fullname, '{0:N2} GB' -f ($len / 1Gb)
}

get user profiles size with powershell

% is an alias for the foreach-object loop.

Let’s go on. Suppose, your task is to find the size of each directory in the root of the system hard drive and present the information in the convenient table form for analysis and able to be sorted by the folder size.

To get the information about the size of directories on the system C:\ drive, run the following PowerShell script:

$targetfolder='C:\'
$dataColl = @()
gci -force $targetfolder -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | ? { $_ -is [io.directoryinfo] } | % {
$len = 0
gci -recurse -force $_.fullname -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | % { $len += $_.length }
$foldername = $_.fullname
$foldersize= '{0:N2}' -f ($len / 1Gb)
$dataObject = New-Object PSObject
Add-Member -inputObject $dataObject -memberType NoteProperty -name “foldername” -value $foldername
Add-Member -inputObject $dataObject -memberType NoteProperty -name “foldersizeGb” -value $foldersize
$dataColl += $dataObject
}
$dataColl | Out-GridView -Title “Size of subdirectories”

get folder sizes on drive C: with posh

As you can see, the graphic view of the table should appear where all folders in the root of the system drive C:\ and their size are shown (the table is generated by the Out-GridView cmdlet). By clicking the column header, you can sort the folders by size. You can also export the results to CSV (| Export-Csv folder_size.csv) or to an Excel file.

If you are using directory size checking in your PowerShell scripts, you can create a separate function:

function Get-FolderSize {
[CmdletBinding()]
Param (
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$true)]
$Path
)
if ( (Test-Path $Path) -and (Get-Item $Path).PSIsContainer ) {
$Measure = Get-ChildItem $Path -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Measure-Object -Property Length -Sum
$Sum = '{0:N2}' -f ($Measure.Sum / 1Gb)
[PSCustomObject]@{
"Path" = $Path
"Size($Gb)" = $Sum
}
}
}

To use the function, simply run the command with the folder path as an argument:

Get-FolderSize ('C:\PS')

powershell function get-foldersize

You can use your local PowerShell function to check the folder size on remote computers via the Invoke-Command (PowerShell Remoting) cmdlet.

Invoke-Command -ComputerName hq-srv01 -ScriptBlock ${Function:Get-FolderSize} –ArgumentList 'C:\PS'

powershell function get foldersize on remote computer

These commands work in all PowerShell versions, including newer versions of PowerShell Core 7.x.

17 comments
12
Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
previous post
Managing Saved Passwords Using Windows Credential Manager
next post
PowerShell SecretManagement Module: Securely Manage Credentials and Secrets

Related Reading

Create Organizational Units (OU) Structure in Active Directory...

May 17, 2022

Windows Security Won’t Open or Shows a Blank...

May 17, 2022

How to Manually Install Windows Updates from CAB...

May 16, 2022

RDS and RemoteApp Performance Issues on Windows Server...

May 16, 2022

Deploying Software (MSI Packages) Using Group Policy

May 12, 2022

17 comments

ewolfman July 29, 2019 - 1:24 pm

Great script! Many thanks.
Just adding here: If you want to display the output directly to the screen instead of the grid (for example within a docker container), use:

$dataColl | Write-Output

Reply
Bob March 23, 2020 - 4:16 pm

Thanks for your addition!

Reply
Richard August 6, 2019 - 7:36 pm

Well written article, thanks!

I do have one suggestion, I have to run powershell in a command prompt but can’t run it in a script (running remotely with a tool that doesn’t have access to powershell). The formatting ({0:N2}) and the pipe was not allowing the switches to work. So I had to replace ‘{0:N2}’ with ‘[math]round(…)’. And I had to escape the pipe with a carrot. End result looked like:

[math]round((gci –force c:\Windows –Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue ^| measure Length -s).sum / 1Gb)

And that got me exactly what I needed. But I wouldn’t have gotten the jump start I needed without this guidance.
Thanks again!

Reply
Luís Palma September 24, 2019 - 11:11 am

Hello,

How can I add a code line for files?

Thank you

Reply
Even More PowerShell Fun – Zewwy's Info Tech Talks February 13, 2020 - 4:00 am

[…] Getting Folder Sizes […]

Reply
Paresh June 2, 2020 - 3:48 pm

I add below command to get count result as well but it give only one level of sub directory , it doesn’t count sub sub folder file count , can you help with it
Add-Member -InputObject $dataobject -MemberType NoteProperty -name “count” -Value (getchileitem dir $_.FullName -recurse | Measure-Object).Count

Reply
sudharani June 12, 2020 - 4:51 pm

This what I am exactly looking for. One request. How can I export the final result to an .csv.

Reply
Michael Freitas October 6, 2020 - 1:29 pm

I did it manually, selected all the lines, copied and pasted it into excel.
It has already pasted separated by columns.
If you have the script to do this automatically it will be better.

Reply
Nick December 7, 2020 - 4:16 pm

Export-Csv “Path to the CSV file”

Reply
Lukas Novotny September 8, 2020 - 5:46 pm

Last script to show sizes of all subfolders in GUI doesn’t work. Previous script worked, but this just hangs in PS and nothing happens…

Reply
Michael Freitas October 6, 2020 - 1:12 pm

Great Script!!! Thank you!

Reply
Michael Freitas October 6, 2020 - 1:14 pm

I had to manually delete and place double quotes. So it worked!

Reply
Michael Freitas October 6, 2020 - 1:21 pm

Just sorting by size is not working for me. It is classifying as text. It is classifying thus:

97,5
9
80,6
8

But it’s just a detail that doesn’t take away from the script’s merits. Great script!

Reply
Get size of all items in current path – Ivan's Corner January 8, 2021 - 11:00 am

[…] for an easy way to get the size of all user profiles folder through PowerShell and found this woshub and inspired by it ended with the following function which measures the size of everything in […]

Reply
Dattu April 22, 2021 - 8:15 am

Nice code, it workds

Reply
Binjamin Man August 24, 2021 - 12:09 pm

I like the third party tool: Directory Report
It can filter by file types, modification date, size and owner
It can save its output to many file types including directly to MS-Excel

Reply
Krzysztof November 2, 2021 - 9:04 am

Sorting fix:

$targetfolder=’C:\’
$dataColl = @()
gci -force $targetfolder -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | ? { $_ -is [io.directoryinfo] } | % {
$len = 0
gci -recurse -force $_.fullname -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | % { $len += $_.length }
$foldername = $_.fullname
$foldersize= [math]::Round(($len / 1Gb),2)
$foldersizeint = [int]$foldersize
$dataObject = New-Object PSObject
Add-Member -inputObject $dataObject -memberType NoteProperty -name “foldername” -value $foldername
Add-Member -inputObject $dataObject -memberType NoteProperty -name “foldersizeGb” -value $foldersize
$dataColl += $dataObject
}
$dataColl | Out-GridView -Title “Size of subdirectories”

Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Categories

  • Active Directory
  • Group Policies
  • Exchange Server
  • Microsoft 365
  • Azure
  • Windows 11
  • Windows 10
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Server 2019
  • Windows Server 2016
  • Windows Server 2012 R2
  • PowerShell
  • VMWare
  • Hyper-V
  • MS Office

Recent Posts

  • Create Organizational Units (OU) Structure in Active Directory with PowerShell

    May 17, 2022
  • Windows Security Won’t Open or Shows a Blank Screen on Windows 10/ 11

    May 17, 2022
  • How to Manually Install Windows Updates from CAB and MSU Files?

    May 16, 2022
  • RDS and RemoteApp Performance Issues on Windows Server 2019/2016

    May 16, 2022
  • Deploying Software (MSI Packages) Using Group Policy

    May 12, 2022
  • Updating VMware ESXi Host from the Command Line

    May 11, 2022
  • Enable or Disable MFA for Users in Azure/Microsoft 365

    April 27, 2022
  • Fix: You’ll Need a New App to Open This Windows Defender Link

    April 27, 2022
  • How to Reset an Active Directory User Password with PowerShell and ADUC?

    April 27, 2022
  • How to Completely Uninstall Previous Versions of Office with Removal Scripts?

    April 26, 2022

Follow us

woshub.com

ad

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • RSS
Popular Posts
  • Installing RSAT Administration Tools on Windows 10 and 11
  • Get-ADUser: Find Active Directory User Info with PowerShell
  • How to Hide Installed Programs in Windows 10 and 11?
  • Manage Windows Updates with PSWindowsUpdate PowerShell Module
  • How to Find the Source of Account Lockouts in Active Directory domain?
  • Tracking and Analyzing Remote Desktop Connection Logs in Windows
  • How to Create a UEFI Bootable USB Drive to Install Windows 10 or 7?
Footer Logo

@2014 - 2018 - Windows OS Hub. All about operating systems for sysadmins


Back To Top