| Q: | How can I search for files of the type XYZ? |
| A: | Open the TreeSize Professional File Search via the Windows "Start" menu or the TreeSize Professional "File Search" menu, activate only the custom search type and check the drives that should be searched, on the tab "Custom Search" enter "*.XYZ" to the list patterns that should be matched, then press the "Start" button on the right. Another possibility: Set a filter in the Options dialog of the main application. Then TreeSize Professional will only include matching files when calculating the folder sizes. The results will provide a good overview of the distribution of these file type(s) and can be exported to a text file using the context menu. Our product SpaceObServer, which keeps the data of watched file system trees in an SQL database, has faster and more flexible search and report features. |
| Q: | Is it possible for TreeSize Professional to move files to a specified location based on last change date and retain directory structure? |
| A: | Please start the TreeSize Professional File Search through the main menu of TreeSize Professional or the Windows Start menu. Activate only the "Oldest files" search type on the "Search Options" tab and adjust the date on the "Oldest files" tab. You may also use the Custom file search if you need more flexible filter options. Then hit the "Start" button on the right. All listed files that are checked can then be moved using the "Move Checked" button on the right. If you choose another file system folder as destination, the directory structure will be preserved when moving the files. |
| Q: | How can I search my entire network for AVI files? |
| A: | Open the TreeSize Professional Custom File Search using the Windows Start menu or the TreeSize "File Search" menu. Make sure that only the Custom Search type is activated on the "Search Options" tab and hit "Browse and add path", choose "Network". On the tab "Custom Search" add the pattern *.avi and hit "Start". |
| Q: | Is it possible to check several or all results in the File Search window at one time instead of checking them individually? |
| A: | To check all results, click on "Edit > Check All" in the main menu. You may select multiple files using a left mouse click while holding the <Shift>- or <Ctrl>-key down. Using "Check" from the context menu checks all currently selected files. Some successive files can also be easily checked by pressing the space bar several times. The space bar checks the currently focused file and advances to the next file in the list. |
| Q: | Which files can I safely delete? |
| A: | Unfortunately there is no short and easy answer to this question because usually one cannot know where a file came from and what it is used for. Generally temporary files and cache files of the internet browsers can nearly always be deleted safely. Besides deleting files, the file search of TreeSize Professional offers you to move files to a different drive or to a compressed ZIP file which can then be archived. That way files that are still needed can be easily restored. |
| Q: | Does TreeSize Professional have the capability to delete files in specified directories over a certain age and if so, can this be scheduled? |
A: The TreeSize Professional File Search can search, report and delete or move files over a certain age in using the "Oldest Files" search type or the custom search type. Check the files you want to delete (use "Edit > Check All" to check-mark all files) and use the "Move" button on the right to move them to the Recycle Bin or to another folder. Scripting this is possible through the command line option /MOVETO (Professional Edition only). Any search options saved to an XML file can be passed at the command line and the results can be saved using /SAVE or moved, for example: TreeSize.EXE /SEARCH /MOVETO "C:\Temp\TST\Moved" "C:\Temp\TSP\Files_ending_with_TMP.xml". You may pass "Recycle Bin" as destination as well: TreeSize.EXE /SEARCH /MOVETO "Recycle Bin" "C:\Temp\TSP\Files_ending_with_TMP.xml". You may use "Tools > Schedule Current Search Options" to open the TreeSize Schedule dialog.
| Q: | How can I change XY for each file in the search results in a scheduled File Search? |
| A: | Start the TreeSize File Search. Please configure the custom file search appropriately, turn off all other search types and save your search options to an XML config file using the "File" menu. As an example we will describe how to apply NTFS compression to all files in the search results. This is not built into TreeSize Professional, but TreeSize Professional can pass each search result to an executable or script, which is a very powerful and flexible feature. Please create a small Batch file NTFSCompress.bat containing:
COMPACT /C %1
To NTFS compress the search results, you can use a command line like this:
TreeSize.exe /SEARCH /MOVETO NTFSCompress.bat MySearchOptions.xml
This solution applies to the Professional Edition only. |
| Q: | How do I perform a duplicate file search on multiple network drives? |
| A: | Open the TreeSize Professional File search using the Windows Start menu or the TreeSize Professional Tools menu, on the "Scan Options" tab activate only the duplicate file search, add the network paths to the list of "Drives and Paths to Search" and start the search. You may change the way TreeSize Professional compares the files on the "Duplicate Files" tab. |
| Q: | After deduplicating files, the Windows "Properties" dialog still shows the same size for the containing folder. Why is this? |
| A: | When deduplicating files, TreeSize Professional replaces duplicate files by hard links, after which the physical data exists only once on the hard disk. There are however X links to this data. Each of these links is shown with the size of the physical data, this is why the Windows Explorer and by default also TreeSize Professional shows the same disk usage for these files and the folders they are included in. If you take a look at the allocated space of the physical drive (in the "Drive Panel" in TreeSize Professional or in the "Properties" of the drive in the Windows Explorer) you will notice the difference. To get the correct physically allocated size of a folder, you need to use the TreeSize Professional main application and make sure that the option "Track NTFS Alternate Data Streams and Hard Links" is turned on in the Options. |
| Q: | Is it possible to scan all our 300 workstations with TreeSize Professional for finding e.g. who stores PST files locally on his workstation? |
| A: | What you can do is using the Custom Search type of the TreeSize Professional File Search. It allows to search an entire Windows domain for certain files, like *.pst. Simply specify \\YourDomainName as path to search. TreeSize Professional will then enumerate all available PCs in that domain and search their drives (or more exactly: their public and hidden shares) for the files matching the search criteria. |
| Q: | Does TreeSize Professional support paths with more than 255 characters when searching files? |
Q: How do you search for files over a certain number GB and older than a certain date? I'm trying to find data to archive on my file server
A: Please start the TreeSize Professional File Search using the "File Search" menu or the Windows "Start" menu, activate the "Custom Search" type only on the "Search Options" tab and adjust the search parameters on the "Custom Search" tab accordingly.
Q: Does TreeSize Professional change any of the modified/accessed/changed date & time information on files or folders when scanning?
A: No, TreeSize does not change file dates when scanning a file system branch.
| Q: | Does TreeSize Professional allow to search for directories? |
| A: | Yes. You can use the Custom Search type of the TreeSize Professional File Search to do that. Start the File Search using the Windows "Start" menu or the TreeSize "File Search menu and open the "Size / Attributes" tab of the Custom Search. Select the "Directory" attribute only. TreeSize Professional searches now for directories only. Example: To find all directories named "System32" use the pattern: *\System32 |
| Q: | Does TreeSize Professional allow to search for empty directories? |
| A: | No. Empty directories do not occupy disk space on NTFS volumes, so searching for empty directories costs time, but does not free up disk space. Furthermore there are directories in which programs place (temporary) files only while they run. Deleting these directories can cause error messages or malfunctions when starting those programs the next time. What you could do is to export a scanned directory branch to an excel file and use Excel's "Auto Filter" feature to filter those folders that have zero files in them. Please make sure that this option is checked before exporting: File > Export > Customize > Excel > Export > Export Full Branch. |
