findbiggets.ps1 — Finding Your Biggest Files Fast with PowerShell

Introduction

If you have ever run low on disk space and had no idea what was actually taking it up, this script is for you. It scans a folder, finds the largest files inside it, and gives you a clean report — file name, location, size, when it was created, and when it was last accessed — without you having to right-click through File Explorer and wait for “Calculating size…” over and over.

Getting the Script

The full script is available to direct download on https://github.com/az104tor/findbiggest It requires PowerShell 7 and runs on Windows 10/11 and Windows Server 2019/2022. No external modules, no installation, only a ps1 file. Alternatively you can downloads a full local copy of my project git repository directly from PowerShell.

To install the PowerShell git modules launch it as administrator and run the commands:

Install-Module posh-git -Scope CurrentUser -Force
Install-Module posh-git -Scope CurrentUser -AllowPrerelease -Force # Newer beta version with PowerShell Core support

to clone on your local machine the findbiggest project:

git clone https://github.com/az104tor/findbiggest.git

Please remember, that when a script is downloaded from the internet, user must unblock the file. Move to the Download directory and run:

cd findbiggest
Unblock-File -Path .\findbiggest.ps1
.\findbiggest.ps1  # run the script

If you get an execution policy error:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser

What findbiggest does

By default, the script scans your user profile folder (C:\Users\YourName), since that’s usually where downloads, documents, and app data quietly pile up. You can point it anywhere else if you want to scan a different drive or folder.

A few things make it more useful than a basic file search:

Skips the noise. Folders like temp caches, node_modules, and .git internals are excluded by default, so you’re not wading through junk that isn’t worth cleaning up.
Fast scanning. Instead of PowerShell’s built-in recursive search, it uses robocopy in “list only” mode under the hood — a much faster way to walk large folder trees without actually copying anything.
Live progress. While it scans, you get a running status update instead of a blank terminal wondering if anything is happening.
Human-readable sizes. Results show in KB, MB, GB, or TB, whichever makes sense — no squinting at “40960.00 MB” when “40 GB” would do.
Timed summary. The report tells you how long the scan took and how many files were checked in total.
Clean, ordered report. Everything is written to a text file with columns in a sensible order: Name, Directory, Size, Created, Last Accessed — and it opens automatically when done.

Usage

The script accepts 4 arguments (all optional, since each has a default value):

Argument	Type	Default	What it does
`-Path`	`string`	`$env:USERPROFILE` (your user profile folder)	The folder to scan for large files
`-Top`	`int`	`10`	How many of the largest files to include in the report
`-OutputFile`	`string`	`$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\LargestFiles.txt`	Where to save the text report
`-ExcludeDirs`	`string[]`	Temp, Packages, INetCache, CrashDumps, `node_modules`, `.git`	List of folder names/paths to skip during the scan

Examples:

Run with no arguments to scan your user profile folder and report the top 10 largest files.

.\findbiggest.ps1

When it finishes, the report opens automatically in Notepad ( USERPROFILE\Desktop\LargestFiles.txt ) , and you’ll have a clear picture of exactly what’s eating your disk space — and where to go clean it up.

Run to Scan a specific folder or drive, change how many results to return, and set a custom output location:

.\findbiggest.ps1 -Path "D:\Projects" -Top 20 -OutputFile "D:\big-files-report.txt"

Override the excluded folders entirely

.\findbiggest.ps1 -ExcludeDirs @("Desktop" "node_modules", ".git", "$env:TEMP")

* Since -ExcludeDirs is an array, passing your own list replaces the defaults rather than adding to them — if you still want the built-in exclusions plus your own, you need to include them explicitly in the array you pass.

Conclusion

Disk space investigations don’t need to involve endless right-clicking and waiting on “Calculating size…” dialogs. With one script, you get a ranked, readable list of exactly which files are worth deleting, archiving, or moving to external storage — plus enough context (location, age, last use) to make a confident call instead of guessing.