Searching Offline File Systems
Sometimes you need answers from a file system you can no longer touch: a decommissioned server, a share you lack permissions for, or simply the state of a volume as it existed last quarter. FolderSizes solves this with file system snapshots - portable metadata captures that can be searched and reported on as if the original volume were still online.
How It Works
A snapshot captures the complete state of any file system node - a drive, folder, network share, or several at once - into a standalone snapshot file. That file acts as a self-contained database of folder and file metadata: names, sizes, dates, attributes, and owners. Once created, it can be analyzed on any machine, by anyone, without access to (or any load on) the live system.
Running an Offline Search
- Create the snapshot: select Snapshot | Create New Snapshot, choose the target drive or folder, and specify the output file.
- Open the FolderSizes Search tool and browse to the snapshot file as the search location.
- Define search rules exactly as you would for a live search - file types, sizes, dates, owners, and more.
- Click Start. Results return fast, because no disk enumeration is needed.
Snapshot searches are quick even at scale. In one of our tests, capturing a volume with 11,238 folders and over 1.5 million files took under three and a half minutes - and a subsequent search of that snapshot identified more than 1.3 million image files totaling 10 GB in under two minutes.
Why Search Offline?
- Delegated reporting - let staff analyze storage they lack live permissions to access, using a snapshot captured by an administrator.
- Historical records - retain point-in-time captures for trend analysis, audits, and investigations long after the data has changed or moved.
- Availability independence - generate reports while the target system is offline, being migrated, or already retired. Snapshots pair naturally with file system migrations as before/after evidence.