SpaceSniffer

SpaceSniffer: The Free Storage Detective You Need Right Now

If your SSD runs out of space but you don't know which files are taking all that space, there's a tool named SpaceSniffer. Visually and technically speaking, it will give you a tree-map representation of your storage, making it incredibly easy to identify those pesky space hogs.

Core Features

It's so cool - when you run it, it shows your entire hard drive as these colored boxes. The bigger the box, the more space that file or folder is hogging. It's like:

• Tree-Map Visualization: allows you to SEE what's eating your space instead of guessing
• Real-Time Scan Updates: when you delete something, the map updates right away
• Filtering and Tagging: you can filter to find just your movies or photos or whatever
• Portable App: you don't even have to install it - just download and run it
• Customizable View: you can color-code stuff to make it easier to spot the space hogs

Trust me, it's WAY better than clicking through a million folders trying to figure out where all your space went!

The Interface is Easy to Use

The look is kinda old school, same thing as I wrote in a previous review about Password Safe. But who cares? It works! You literally just download it, double-click, and pick which drive to scan. That's it!

The only bummer is it's Windows-only, so you can't use it on your MacBook.

Probably irrelevant info but I downloaded SpaceSniffer and ran it in Parallels (a virtual machine that allows you to run Windows on macOS) on a MacBook - out of curiosity and it works fine - the only thing you will notice is an error message "Unable to examine" - probably because it detects some areas that are protected from the macOS.

Performance

First time I used SpaceSniffer I was thinking it's going to take forever to scan my computer. Probably the trauma I had for decades with antiviruses which more often than not took forever to finish a computer scan. Scan is fast here - whole drive in like 2 minutes.

It doesn't make your computer all laggy while it's running either (again as an analogy with antivirus products). You can keep working while it does its thing.

It does get a little weird with network drives sometimes, but for your laptop and external hard drive, it'll be perfect.

The Good and Potential Improvements

Things You'll Love:

• It's FREE! and portable
• It updates as you delete stuff so you can see your progress
• The visual map is super easy to understand
• You can search for specific file types when you're hunting for space

Things That Might Bug You:

• It doesn't actually clean anything up for you - just shows you what's there
• Won't work with your Google Drive stuff so it lacks cloud storage analysis

Is It Better Than Other Options?

I would say SpaceSniffer is way more satisfying to use when compared to any other paid disk analyzer. Some other tools might scan a tiny bit faster, but SpaceSniffer stands out for its visually engaging approach.

Who Should Use This

It's perfect for you because:

• You've got like 50,000 photos eating up your drive
• Your laptop is running super slow because it's almost full
• You're too lazy to manually search through all your folders (no judgment, I am too)

Bottom Line

SpaceSniffer is a powerful app and it excels at one thing - it helps you to visualize and manage your disk space. Just download it already! It's free, it's easy, and it'll help you clean up all those mystery files that are making your laptop so slow. I bet you'll find at least 50GB of stuff you don't need in the first 10 minutes.

Fixed binary export file format (Version 2). Now text elements are encoded in Base 64 format to prevent special characters corruption. Version 1 files are still readable.