Add Folder Size in Windows XP’s Explorer

Written by Shanx February 20th, 2003

folder size in windows explorer

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Neat little tip to see size of your folders.

Want to see the size of your folders and not just files in your Windows XP Explorer listings?

If you are interested, Sequoia View is a very useful tool to do some nifty things with your folders. Other than that, this following note is now showing its age. If sorting and such is not necessary, a simple mouse-over your folders in Explorer will show you a tooltip with an approximate size of your directories. The menu option Tools --> Options --> View --> Show file size in folder tips should let you control the behavior of this tooltip.

Well it’s probably a simple feature that the Windows team at Microsoft forgot to include, so Mark Dormer has a solution. Just download his tiny DLL file:

It’s an EXE file. All you really have to do is:

  1. Copy the file to your c:\windows\system32 folder.
  2. Execute the following command in Start –> Run dialogue box and you’re ready to roll:
    regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\dirsize.dll
  3. Now open Explorer in details view, you wont see the column yet. Right click on a heading in the right pane and select “Folder Size”.

Couple of Caveats

  • Calculating folder size is a turtle on very large folders with lots of subfolders. There’s no indexing built into this.
  • As much you and I would like, this tool doesn’t do sorting of folders based on the folder size. You may want to give another utility a try, the Folder Shell Extension.

Couple of Tips

  • To apply this setting for all the folder, click Tools, Folder Options. In the View tab and click Apply to all folders.
  • To remove the feature, simply un-register the DLL later with the following command (ignore error messages if any) –
    regsvr32 /u %Systemroot%\System32\Dirsize.dll

Hope this helps.

6 Comments

  1. Poolboynaturel says:

    The link :D ownload Mark Dormer’s Folderview DLL
    is a bad link.
    markd.mvps.org/DirSize.dll Returns a page cannot be found error.
    Has any one used this program and does it work?

  2. jimmy you says:

    Good Tip. This is now superceded by this freeware program (and others no doubt!) I found on softpedia get it here:
    http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/OS-Enhancements/Folder-Size-Explorer-Extension.shtml

  3. miz says:

    After placing dll in system32 folder, RegSvr32 complains “not an executable file and no registration helper is registered for this file type”?

  4. davide1982 says:

    Here's how you may enable displaying folders size without installation of any additional software:

    http://www.myhowtoos.com/en/windows-howtoos/91-...

  5. Ken says:

    Hey davide1982. Downloading a DLL and registering it in the system is installation of software. And your link is broken.

    Ken

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