Wrong calculation of folder size by Windows

Anonymous

Hello,

I noticed today that my Windows system does not properly calculate folder sizes.

I'm actually trying to make a backup of all my personal and work content. When I check the whole backup folder size under properties, It shows me around 10 Gb. But when I open this big folder and select a subfolder, It show me 30 Gb... This is kind of really annoying and I think it's a major issue Microsoft should fix ASAP.

I would like to say (because I didn't find anywhere else to post it) that in my opinion, Microsoft lacks ways of collecting feedback from his clients. There is nowhere we can manually report bugs and crashes.

In any ways, I think that showing correct folder sizes is a really basic task that an Operating System should be able to do. Such a bug is inacceptable for a leader like Microsoft, and I honestly consider going along with Apple if this issue does not get quickly fixed. My computer will soon need to be changed in anyways.

Meanwhile, if some of you guys have found ways to go around this major issue, feel free to share them :). Thank you!

Here is my technical information :

Intel Core i7-3720QM 2.60 GHz

64 bits

Windows 10 family version 1803

Installed on 2018-06-20

O.S. version 17134.112

Many thanks is advance,

Antoine

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Answer accepted by question author

DaveM121 931.8K Independent Advisor

Hi Antoine_795,

It is widely reported that version 1803 of Windows 10 has introduced a bug into Explorer.exe

It is because it cannot read the metadata of files correctly, it mixes up the size and dimensions for example

Therefore it cannot calculate the size of a folder, especially if it has sub-folders, it also cannot calculate the spare space on a hard drive . . .

In the meantime, while we are waiting for Microsoft to fix this bug:

Click the link below to download a small free utility called Treesize - it is a great utility . . .

Using that tool, you will instantly see the size of all folders (always missing form File Explorer) and where space is being used on your hard drive . . .

https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/

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105 additional answers

Anonymous

2019-10-04T18:28:24+00:00

For the last 6 months people have been saying that it was fixed in a windows update. But It wasn't fixed for me until the update that came through last night. Now it seems to be working correctly. Although I have been using Treesize free for so long now, i am used to it, and it is much much faster in getting properties for large directories with lots of files. For one directory on an 8TB drive in RAID 0 created from 4- 2TB Samsung SSD's, Treesize got the directory properties in 7 seconds. It took windows 86 seconds to get the same properties, plus Treesize gives me a lot more useful information about the directory.

It's nice to know that Microsoft has fixed the problem, but I will stick to the free version of Treesize.
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Anonymous

2019-10-11T01:18:53+00:00

I just noticed the same thing!! I have an external hard drive that i want to back up on my computer and after it finished copying, i did an info calculation on each and it comes up with totally different sizes. I then used syncbackpro v9 to verify the two folders are identical and they are. What is happening? Windows is not calculating file and folder sizes correctly.
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Anonymous

2019-11-04T03:17:12+00:00

I too have had the same problem. I run Windows 10 Home. The main area it has affected me in is a backup of some photos from my phone. I have a folder that is 117GB, mainly photos, some video. Windows reports each file as 31.5GB and the overall folder as 199.2TB!

I have downloaded TLPD and have gone through and deleted the files over 255 characters and that hasn't solved my problem. I also updated to Windows 10 1903 and that still hasn't fixed my problem like it has for some others. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this? It has plagued me for months. I'd really like to recover my photos. Windows 10 photo viewer or a 3rd party viewer won't allow me to view the files.
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Anonymous

2019-11-04T21:04:56+00:00

I am not sure what TLPD is, but I have Windows 10 ver 1809 [Version 10.0.17763.805] and after a recent update it seems to be a lot closer to what I get with the TreeSize Free program. For one directory, windows properties gave me 3.75 Tb, 207,233 files and 28,892 folders and Treesize gave me 3.8 TB with 207,239 files and 28,897 folders. The difference is small and might be windows system files and directories that Windows Properties may not be able to see, but Treesize can. But, there should not be any system files or directories in that drive, it just contains data files, but that does not mean that Microsoft creates them without telling you anyway. Previously Windows Properties would only show 10% of the files in that drive. I don't know what update seemed to fix the problem since Microsoft has taken away our control of updates with Windows 10, and everybody gets them at different times, sometimes 5 or 6 months apart.

When I was having the problem, it did not seem to be related to the file/path length. Even short paths were not counted correctly.
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