Folder Properties in Explorer under-reporting disk space

Hi all


The major update to Windows 10 was rolled out to my PC several days ago. Except for the issue I am reporting in this post, everything looks fine and the new and updated features all look good!

However since the update the space usage being reported when I select the Properties menu item after right-clicking on a folder in Windows Explorer is reporting vastly lower disk space usage than it ever did before the update.

For example, my Documents folder is showing 2.85Gb of space usage. However one of the subfolders (at the level directly below the Documents root directory) uses more than 5Gb by itself! (which in this case seems to be correctly reporting). This is just one of many subfolders off my Documents folder though, and the under-reporting problem extends to just about every other major folder that I have tried on my system (on both my system and portable hard disk drives).

The differences in space usage being reported are at extreme levels, along the lines of reporting less than 10% of the space usage than when I performed the same request before the update. I have never experienced anything even remotely close to this (under any version of Windows) before the update.

I have taken all the obvious steps such as checking Explorer's viewing options (none of which I changed before either before or after the update to cause these issues to arise) and looking for similar issues already being posted on Windows support forums. However I must admit that having totally drawn a blank with all of these avenues, it's time to ask the experts!

By the way the issue isn't something as simple as having the option to include subfolders in space usage being turned off, as there is far less than 2.85Gb of space usage by my files on the Documents root directory (and once again the same patterns are apparent on other folders on my system).

Has anyone else experienced similar issues with the under-reporting of disk space usage in Windows Explorer? (and if so have these problems seemed to have been introduced by the recent Windows 10 update?) Are there any steps you would advise I take to revert back to the space usage figures I would be expecting (and have always obtained before the update). This is a feature of Explorer that I constantly use and find very useful, but am being severely limited in its usage since the issues I am reporting in this post have recently come up.

Thanks everyone, your assistance in getting this issue resolved would be much appreciated!


Darren Campbell

TigerDarren said:

Has anyone else experienced similar issues with the under-reporting of disk space usage in Windows Explorer?

Yes.

I don't know when it started but it's an embarrassment of Windows 10. The most basic function of Explorer (finding files) must include accurate item counts in folders. But doesn't always.

To be fair it's only happened on one of my three PCs. My wife's laptop has a ton folders and Explorer said No it doesn't. But I was doing a Google Backup and Sync and it sure saw those items that Explorer was missing.

I've noticed Explorer itself is jinky in other spots too. For instance -- the recycle bin.

1. Sometimes it shows itself empty when there are actually items in it.
2. Sometimes it shows itself with a number of items (2) but when opened is empty.
3. If you have say 100 items in Bin and click the Empty button -- visually it dumps maybe half of them but appears to allow the remainder to sit there. If you close and reopen the bin only THEN are they VISUALLY gone.

These are tinkertoy OS mistakes.