Glary Disk Explorer is a small application able to identify files and folders that eat up space on your disk. It can be deployed on all Windows platforms out there.

This free tool reveals a graphical representation of how much space items occupy on your computer with the aid of pie charts. You also get to view detailed information about each file and directory, and filter the results by file extension.

Identifying space hogs helps you decide which items you want to keep or delete. In case files are no longer of use, Glary Disk Explorer lets you delete or send them to the Recycle Bin. You can analyze both internal and external hard drives.
Intuitive interface

The GUI looks straightforward and provides access to an Explorer-like panel that allows you to browse throughout the content of folders stored in your computer. If you click on a folder, the utility automatically displays its content and size information in the primary window.

Glary Disk Explorer gives you the possibility to hide several elements from your view, although the layout does not look crowded and confusing with all of them activated. However, if you do not make use of all the available tools, you can opt for hiding the toolbar, Explorer-like navigation panel, details about the each item, and pie charts. You can also make the program expand a folder upon its selection.

An online help manual is available in case you need assistance with some of the configuration settings.
File management options

Glary Disk Explorer lets you analyze all local or individual drives, or a user-defined folder stored on the system. Plus, the app is able to reveal data about each drive, such as name, total size, free space, as well as percentage of used space. Each time you run an analysis mode, you are asked to select the drives or folders that you want to scan.

The scan process of a local drive does not take too much time but this pretty much depends on its size. The utility eats up CPU and memory resources so the overall performance of the computer may be hampered.

Detailed information is offered about each file, such as filename, size, percentage, location, modified date, and type. In addition, you can view the used and free space with the aid of a progress bar, total number of files and folders, as well as creation, modification and last accessed date.

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You are allowed to filter the results by file extension, such as BMP, CAB, DLL, EXE, INI, LOG, MSI, TXT, DOC, MP3, PDF, AVI, MP4, WAV, and OGG. Plus, you can filter the items by videos, compressed files, songs, images, or documents.

Glary Disk Explorer helps you open the Explorer location where a file is stored on the disk, run the command prompt, view file properties, as well as delete items or send them to the Recycle Bin so you can recover them in case you change your mind or you have accidentally removed important documents.

Sorting options are available for filtering the results by size, name, percentage, location, modification date, or type. Subfolders are included in a scan, and you also get to double-click on directories to view the files that are stored within. A ‘Back’ button allows you to access the previously opened folder.

The Good

Glary Disk Explorer is quick and provides at-a-glance information about the items that are responsible for eating up a lot of space on the disk. The feature pack is straightforward and easy to follow even by less experienced users. You can filter items by file extension and video, music, documents, image, and compressed items, delete files, as well as scan all local drives and individual drives, and folders.

The Bad

We have tested the program on Windows 8.1 Pro and come across some bugs that made the application become unresponsive and eventually crash upon activating the ‘Show All files’ function.

Deleting tasks are limited to sending files to the Recycle Bin or removing them from your system. You cannot wipe out items permanently using secure deletion algorithms. You are not allowed to perform searches, print and save the results to CSV, plain text, XLS and other file formats, and drag and drop files into the main window for getting an overview of the space usage.

The Truth

Glary Disk Explorer can be used for quick scan tasks of your disk to identify files and folders that take up a lot of space and free up some room in order to enhance the overall performance of your system. The pie graphs give you an overview of how data is organized on your computer. The app accommodates straightforward file management jobs like file deletion and disk analyzing options, and can be of great help to rookies and advanced users alike.