SpaceSniffer

SpaceSniffer is a useful program that provides users with a graphical representation of the contents of their hard drives. Although the results can be a bit overwhelming at times, we found it to be an effective way to view exactly what is taking up space on our computer.

The program’s interface is simple and intuitive. Users simply select the drive they want to scan, and SpaceSniffer sets to work analyzing its contents. The result is a mess of rectangles of different sizes that represent files and folders. A medium-size rectangle represented our application data, for example, and a smaller one represented our desktop. The program can also highlight groups of rectangles that make up a larger segment; it drew a white outline around the group of rectangles that represented the items in our program files. Clicking or double-clicking allows users to zoom in and view more detail about the contents of each folder. Although at first glance the display can look a little cluttered with its assortment of rectangles, it turns out that this is actually a very effective way of judging what’s on your hard drive. We especially like that the program allows users to filter results by file type, size, and age. The program’s PDF Quick Start guide is certainly not the most well-written documentation we’ve ever seen, but it’s fairly detailed, and the program is easy enough to figure out.

SpaceSniffer is free. The program comes as a ZIP file and is accessible after extraction with no need for installation. We recommend this program to all users.