A strong data archiving strategy reduces storage costs, improves backup performance, and reduces clutter so that users can find the data they need. The first step is identifying what should be archived — and that's where FolderSizes helps.
Find Old, Unused Files
The Oldest Files report identifies files that haven't been modified, created, or accessed within a given time period. These stale files are often the best candidates for archival — they consume space but provide no active value.
For a broader view, the File Ages report groups all scanned files into customizable age ranges (e.g., 0–30 days, 1–3 months, 1–2 years, 2+ years), showing the total size and file count in each bucket. This immediately reveals what proportion of your storage is consumed by aging data. Double-click any row to drill down to individual files.
Spot Duplicates Wasting Space
The Duplicate Files report identifies files that exist in multiple locations. Duplicates are excellent archival candidates — keep one copy and archive or remove the rest. FolderSizes can scan multiple local and network file systems simultaneously, so duplicates spread across different storage locations are found in a single pass.
Understand Actual Space Consumption
Effective archival planning requires understanding both the logical size and the actual disk space consumed by files. FolderSizes reports both metrics, accounting for NTFS compression, sparse files, and cluster overhang. This ensures your archival projections reflect real-world storage savings.
Search for Specific Archival Criteria
The advanced search tool lets you build targeted queries that combine multiple criteria. For example:
- Find all documents not modified in the last 5 years
- Find video files over 500 MB on shared drives
- Find files owned by former employees
- Find large files in specific folders that haven't been accessed recently
Search results can be acted on directly — move, copy, delete, or archive (zip) files without leaving FolderSizes.
Track Progress Over Time
Use file system snapshots and the Trend Analyzer to measure the impact of your archival efforts over time. Schedule periodic reports and have them emailed to your team automatically.
See our File Reports FAQ for more about finding old files, duplicates, and other archival candidates.