Disk View

Overview

The Disk View tool makes it easy to visualize the files and folders taking up space on your Mac. It displays an interactive treemap where each block represents a file or folder, with larger blocks indicating larger items. This lets you quickly spot what is consuming the most storage.

Selecting a Folder

1. Select Disk View from the sidebar.
2. Click the Start button on the welcome screen.
3. Click Select Folder and choose any folder you want to scan from the Folder Select window.
4. Click Choose, then click Next in the bottom-right corner.

If you want to pick a different folder, click the Clear Selection button and select again.

Scanning and Viewing Results

The scan may take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes, depending on the folder size and whether your drive is a Solid State Drive or a traditional Hard Drive.

Once the scan is complete, a detailed treemap is displayed. Each coloured block represents a file or folder, and its size corresponds to how much disk space it uses.

• Click on any block to select it.
• Use the breadcrumb navigation at the top to move between folder levels.
• Right-click on a block to open a context menu with options to compress, delete, view in Finder, or add to the ignore list.

Managing Files

From the treemap, you can take action on individual files and folders:

1. Right-click the item you want to manage.
2. Choose an action from the context menu:
   • Delete -- Remove the file or folder.
   • Compress -- Compress the item to save space.
   • View in Finder -- Open the item's location in Finder.
   • Add to Ignore List -- Hide the item from future scans.
3. When you are finished, click Finish in the bottom-right corner to see a summary of how much space was freed up.

We always recommend making a Time Machine backup before deleting files, so you can restore anything you might need later.

Settings

Open preferences by pressing Cmd + , or by choosing Disk Aid > Settings from the menu bar.

Under the Disk View section, you can configure the following:

• Deletion behavior -- Choose whether deleted files go to the Trash or are removed immediately.
• Show hidden files -- Toggle visibility of hidden and system files in the treemap.
• Minimum file size -- Set a minimum file size to filter out small files from the display.
• Color theme -- Choose from several colour themes for the treemap.
• Ignore extensions -- Specify file extensions to exclude from scan results.
• Ignore folders -- Add specific folders to exclude from scan results.