FolderSizes 6 - The Amazing New Release is Here!


Key Metric Software released FolderSizes 6 on May 31st, 2012

File Type Groups Report

FolderSizes 6 introduces an entirely new File Type Groups report, which classifies file types into a series of customizable high-level groups. Examples of pre-defined file type groups include "graphic files", "music", "video files", etc.

The File Type Groups report provides an excellent high-level perspective on which general file types are consuming the most disk space on one or more target file systems. Users can customize existing file type groups or create new ones to suit their needs.

Additionally, the command line and scheduling interfaces have been extended to support the generation of File Type Groups reports, making them easy to integrate into your environment.

Built-In PDF Export Support

FolderSizes 6 features the ability to export any detail report (e.g. folder reports, search results, file reports, etc.) in PDF file format.

FolderSizes PDF report documents have the benefit of being richly formatted (e.g. with tables, optional images, etc.), yet entirely self-contained. Unlike other report export file formats, PDF documents are also clearly paginated. This makes PDF a great choice for printing, or scheduling reports for delivery via email.

Hard Link Tracking

FolderSizes now has the optional ability to track NTFS hard links, which can improve the accuracy of file system analysis reports in some environments.

When engaged, FolderSizes hard link tracking will cause allocate size (e.g. "size on disk") computations to be adjusted for the precense of multiple file linkages. For example, a 500 MB file with two hard links would be presented as two files, each having an allocated size of 250 MB.

Network Share Discovery

FolderSizes 6 introduces deep (and elegant) support for the discovery of network shares on remote servers and network attached storage devices.

Network shares can be discovered either through the new "Discover Shares" window, or by entering UNC server paths (e.g. "\\server") directly into the main window (or File Report Generator) path input box. FolderSizes can even accept a combination of fully qualified paths and server names requiring share discovery, for maximum flexibility.

Network share discovery support has been integrated all the way down into the command line and task scheduling interfaces, allowing for the automated generation of reports in scenarios where a precise list of network shares is not known in advance.

Trend Analyzer

FolderSizes 6 now provides the ability to create trend analysis reports based upon existing XML snapshot files. This feature allows you to construct business cases from historical file system change data and understand how file systems are changing over time.

FolderSizes 6 trend analysis reports contain a wealth of information:

  • Snapshot history (detail report)
  • Folder history by size (chart)
  • Folder history by file count (chart)
  • Top subfolder growth (detail report)
  • Disk history by used space (chart)

The Trend Analyzer also provides a user-configurable time line and time scale, along with the ability to export the contents of its various views.

New Ribbon Bar Customization

FolderSizes 6 now offers improved, easier-to-use ribbon bar customization support - built right into the Program Options window. This makes it easy to edit and create ribbon bar tabs and groups, and control precisely which commands they include.

Email Customization

By popular request, users can now customize the subject and bodies of email messages sent by FolderSizes.

Task Scheduler Improvements

The task scheduler has received numerous enhancements in FolderSizes 6, including a complete re-design of the file report scheduling mechanism that makes it much easier (and more intuitive) to use. Other enhancements include:

  • Improved validation witin the scheduling tab
  • A new folder report option to suppress XSLT file linkage when exporting to XML
  • New support for sorting scheduled detail reports
  • New support for loading program options (from file) during scheduled report generation
  • Numerous other layout and usability enhancements

Additional Enhancements

There are many, many more enhancements in FolderSizes 6, including:

  • A unified 32/64 bit product installer (chooses 32 or 64 executables based upon environment)
  • New support for sorting reports via the command line and scheduler intefaces
  • A new "drivespace" command line parameter, used to export drive-level information
  • Numerous design improvements to the File Report Generator window, improving usability and use of screen space
  • The Search window now uses a splitter control to separate search input from results
  • User-editable templates have been relocated to the user's application data folder
  • New smooth scrollig support in the main window detail view
  • Folder-level scan filter rules are now evaluated for root paths during file report generation
  • A "set to present" button was added to the scheduling tab of the task editor window
  • Added severity level filtering to the error display window
  • The file attributes, file sizes, file dates, and file names report detail views now include a percentage column
  • The duplicate file report master/detail lists are now separated by a resizable splitter
  • Docking drive space panel columns are now user-configurable, including a new percentage indicator
  • Folder browser tree nodes are now colorized according to user options
  • XML file import speed was improved significantly
  • Significant memory savings (up to 40% in some cases) in many common file search scenarios
  • Average file size metric was added to summary section of XML, PDF, and HTML export file formats
  • Much, much more!

Download FolderSizes 6 now, and experience it for yourself.