One caveat: The “mklink” command creates a directory, so you can’t use it to target directories that already exist–which is exactly why this line doesn’t just point to the Users yournameherevideos directory.
This setup destroys the one-folder concept: You’ll just be going back to Clutterville if you dump all of your videos to the D: drive instead of using the Windows 7 Users folder named for that exact purpose. Now, suppose that you’re rocking two hard drives in your system, and you want to put all of your heavy-hitting files on the second, free drive instead of the one that contains the primary Windows partition. So, one folder–and as it happens, Windows 7’s Users folder is a great candidate.
But you should be able to look at your system and quickly identify the one folder you would need to copy were your house on fire–or, more realistically, if you were performing a backup and you wanted to catch just the important files you’ve created on the PC instead of, say, the entire C: drive. Your new organization system starts in the Users folder.Yes, this folder can have subfolders.
Now that you’ve identified caches of unwanted data on your system, you can reduce your digital disaster to manageable levels.įirst, the manual method: Instead of scattering folders every which way around your Users folder, your Windows folder, your desktop, or anywhere else you can think of, you have to become a one-folder master.
Perhaps the most useful feature is Duplicate File Finder’s ability to ignore files under a given size, so you can focus on the big files first.
You can also specify the types of files you want the app to search for, which is convenient if you know that your giant picture directory, for example, contains duplicate files of images that you’ve resized to different dimensions. You can have the program match up files by name, size, or the date and time created (or a combination thereof). To check for this problem, grab the freeware application Auslogics Duplicate File Finder.Īs the name implies, Duplicate File Finder gives you a supereasy method for scanning any folder on your drive (or the entire drive) for duplicate files based on a number of criteria.
A built-in filter field allows you to exclude or only consider certain file types from your search by using either a wildcard (for instance, *.jpg) or a pipe (as in |*.jpg) respectively.ĭuplicate File Finder does as its name suggests.But it’s not just space used that defines clutter: What if, unbeknownst to you, your machine saves everything you edit or download in a ton of different locations throughout the course of your system’s life? Surely duplication of effort has to come into the picture at some point.
That helps to narrow down the source of the clutter, but you should dig a little more.ĭouble-clicking on said folder takes you one level deeper into the mess, and each subsequent click of a subfolder will give you a new visual check on how much space you’re giving up based on the contents of the clicked item. Suppose you see that your Users yournamehere folder holds gigabytes of information. SpaceSniffer gives you a visual representation of your hard drive’s free (or full) space, using boxes to illustrate how much room the folders take up.
Start with a little application called SpaceSniffer. The first step toward PC cleanliness is recognizing the nature of the problem. SpaceSniffer gives you a good look at how you’re using hard-drive space.What’s the source of the clutter? Depending on how you’ve orchestrated your file system, you might have just one folder to clean up–or you might have an entire drive’s worth of stuff.