How to check folder size on a Mac with Finder

To check folder size on a Mac, select the folder in Finder and choose File › Get Info, or press Command-I. The Size line shows how much data the folder holds, how much space that takes on disk, and how many items are inside. A large folder takes a moment to count.

To compare many folders at once, open their parent folder in list view, choose View › Show View Options, and select Calculate all sizes. Every folder then shows its size in the Size column, and a click on the column heading puts the largest first.

Two more tools fill the gaps. The Inspector, opened with Option-Command-I, adds up whatever you select, so you can total several folders. And Finder's search can list every file over a size you choose, anywhere on the Mac.

Folder sizes are honest about the files you can see, but they aren't the whole story. Hidden folders, APFS clones, sparse files and cloud files that aren't downloaded all make Finder's numbers differ from the space actually used. The sections below show each Finder method, then when to trust what it says.

Check folder size on a Mac with Get Info

Get Info is the quickest way to check one folder, and it gives the most detail. It works on any folder, file, app or disk; the steps here follow Finder in macOS 27 Golden Gate.

How do you open Get Info?

Select the folder in Finder or on the desktop, then choose File › Get Info, or press Command-I. You can also Control-click the folder and choose Get Info. Apple's guide says an information window opens for the item.

The General section near the top holds the size. If it's collapsed, click its heading to open it.

What do the two numbers in Size mean?

Finder shows a line such as "2,471,603,712 bytes (2.48 GB on disk) for 1,204 items". The first number is how much data the files inside hold. The figure in brackets is how much space they take on the disk, and the last part counts every file and folder inside.

For a single file, the line is the same without the item count. The two numbers are often close, but they can differ a lot, and the difference tells you something.

Why is the size on disk different from the size?

Three things move it, and two of them make it smaller:

• Compression. macOS stores some files compressed, so they take less space than their contents.
• Sparse files. Files such as disk images can skip the empty parts, so they take far less than their size.
• Small files. A disk stores files in whole blocks, so a tiny file still takes one block.

Apps from Apple are often stored compressed. Here's one large app on one Mac:

• Xcode, size of its files10.3 GB
• Xcode, space on disk4 GB

Measured read-only in October 2026 on one Mac running macOS 27 with Xcode 27 installed. Many of the app's files are stored compressed, so they take less space than their contents.

Why does Get Info say Calculating?

Because Finder counts every file inside the folder before it can show a total, and a folder with tens of thousands of files takes a while. The window updates by itself when it's done, and you can keep working in the meantime.

Why does a folder's size change between checks?

Because something is writing to it. Apps add caches, logs and downloads to folders in your Library while you work, and a folder you sync with a cloud service changes as files download or upload. Close the Get Info window and open it again for a fresh count.

Does Get Info count hidden files?

Inside the folder, yes: hidden files and folders are part of the total, even though Finder doesn't show them in the window. What Get Info never counts is anything outside the folder, such as hidden folders at the top of the disk.

The post on hidden files on a Mac explains how to show them and which ones matter.

Several items at once: the Inspector and Get Summary Info

Get Info opens a separate window for each item you select, which gets crowded fast. Finder has two better ways to see several items together.

What is the Inspector?

It's a single Get Info window that follows your selection. Press Option-Command-I, which Apple's list of keyboard shortcuts describes as showing or hiding the inspector window. You can also hold Option and choose File › Show Inspector.

Click different items and the Inspector changes with them. Select several, and it shows them as one group, with their combined size.

How do you total several folders?

1. Open the folder that holds them.
2. Select the folders you want: Command-click each one, or Shift-click a range in list view.
3. Press Option-Command-I. The Inspector shows how many items you selected and their total size.

That's the fastest way to answer questions like "how much would I free by moving these three project folders to an external drive?"

What is Get Summary Info?

Hold Control with several items selected, and File › Get Info becomes Get Summary Info. Apple's guide describes it as the way to get a summary of information about multiple items. Unlike the Inspector, what it shows doesn't change when you click something else.

Finder tool	How to open it	What it shows
Get Info	Command-I	One item, with size and size on disk
Inspector	Option-Command-I	Whatever is selected, updated as you click
Get Summary Info	Control, then File › Get Summary Info	A summary of several items
Calculate all sizes	View › Show View Options, list view	Every folder in a window, sortable
Show item info	View › Show View Options, icon view	Details under each icon

Show every folder's size in list view

Get Info answers one folder at a time. To find which folder in your home folder is the big one, you want sizes for all of them side by side, and list view can show that.

How do you turn on Calculate all sizes?

1. Open the folder whose contents you want to compare, such as your home folder.
2. Choose View › as List, or press Command-2.
3. Choose View › Show View Options, or press Command-J.
4. Select Calculate all sizes.

Finder fills in the Size column for each folder as it counts. With many large folders, the column fills in gradually.

How do you sort folders by size?

Click the Size column heading. Apple's guide says that clicking a column name sorts by it, and clicking it again reverses the order. Look for the arrow in the heading: you want the largest at the top.

If Size isn't there, Control-click any column heading and select Size. In View Options, the Show Columns list does the same.

Can you make it the default for every folder?

Yes. With Calculate all sizes selected, click Use as Defaults at the bottom of View Options. Apple says this applies the settings to any folder that uses the same view. Folders you open in icon view still show icons, so also select Always open in list view for the folders you check often.

Finder remembers view settings for each folder, so a folder you set up differently before may keep its old settings. Restore to Defaults in View Options brings it back in line.

Why is it off by default?

Finder doesn't say, but the cost is easy to see: to size a folder, it has to count everything inside it. In folders with many large subfolders, that's a lot of work. If browsing feels slow afterwards, turn it off for that folder.

Why does the Size column show two dashes?

Finder shows two dashes for folders when Calculate all sizes is off. A package such as an app still shows a size, because Finder treats it as a single item.

Finder view	Shows folder sizes?	How
List	Yes, once turned on	Calculate all sizes in View Options
Icon	Not as a column	Show item info adds details under icons
Column	No size column	Get Info or the Inspector on the selection
Gallery	No	Get Info or the Inspector on the selection

Icon view, the Preview pane and the status bar

Not everyone browses in list view. Finder's other views have their own ways to show sizes and free space, and one of them works all day on the desktop.

What does Show item info do in icon view?

In icon view, choose View › Show View Options and select Show item info. Apple says item info can include file size, movie length, image dimensions and more, shown under each icon. For a folder, it shows how many items it holds rather than its size.

On the desktop, the same setting puts each disk's size and free space under its icon, which makes a handy gauge you can see without opening anything.

Does the Preview pane show sizes?

Choose View › Show Preview to open it, in any view. It shows a preview and details for the item you select, and Apple's guide points to it for information about files. For a folder's full size, Get Info or the Inspector is more reliable.

How do you see how much space is left?

Look at the bottom of any Finder window. Apple says the status bar shows the number of items in the folder and the amount of available space on its disk. If it's hidden, choose View › Show Status Bar, or press Command-Slash.

The figure is for the disk the folder is on, so a folder on an external drive shows that drive's space. In iCloud Drive, it can show your iCloud space instead, which is a separate pool from your Mac's disk.

Inside apps, libraries and other packages

Some items look like files in Finder but are really folders. They're called packages, and their size shows in Get Info like any file's. Finder can open them, which helps when you want to know what makes one so big.

What is a package?

A folder that Finder shows as a single item, so that you open it with one double-click instead of browsing inside. Apps are packages, and so are the Photos library, iMovie and Final Cut Pro libraries, many document types and some disk images.

That's why an app in list view shows a size even with Calculate all sizes off: Finder treats it as one item and counts what's inside.

How do you see what's inside an app?

Control-click the app and choose Show Package Contents. A new window opens at the top of the package, usually with one folder named Contents. Open it, and use Get Info or list view's sizes on what's inside, as with any folder.

Sort what's inside by size to see which part of the app is heaviest, often its bundled resources or frameworks. The post on what makes applications so large explains where an app's space goes and what's safe to remove around it.

Is it safe to delete things inside a package?

Look, but don't change anything. Removing files from inside an app can stop it opening and breaks its signature, which macOS checks. Inside a library package, it can damage the library: Apple's Photos guide says not to access or alter a library's contents in the Finder.

To make an app smaller, uninstall it or use its own settings. To shrink a Photos library, use Photos itself, such as its Optimize Mac Storage setting.

How do you check the size of your Library folder?

Your Library folder is hidden, but it's often one of the largest in your home folder. Hold Option and choose Go › Library in Finder, then use Get Info on it. To keep it visible, open your home folder, choose View › Show View Options and select Show Library Folder.

The post on the Mac Library folder explains what each folder inside holds and which ones are safe to touch.

Sizing the folders people ask about most

A few folders come up again and again when a Mac fills up. Each has its own quirk when you measure it in Finder.

How do you check the size of your home folder?

Choose Go › Home, or press Shift-Command-H, to open it. To size the home folder itself, press Command-Up Arrow to go to the folder above, select your home folder and press Command-I. Expect to wait: it holds nearly everything you've made or downloaded.

For a quicker picture, stay inside the home folder in list view with Calculate all sizes on. The largest folder at the top is usually where to look next, and you can repeat the same step inside it.

How do you see which apps are largest?

Open Applications from the Finder sidebar, switch to list view with Command-2, and click the Size heading. Apps show their sizes even without Calculate all sizes, because each app is a package Finder sizes as one item.

An app's size in Finder is only the app itself. The data it keeps in your Library, such as caches and downloaded content, lives elsewhere and can be much larger.

How do you check how much is in the Trash?

Open the Trash from the Dock, press Command-A to select everything, then press Option-Command-I. The Inspector shows the total of what's there. While an external drive is connected, its trashed items appear in the same window, and they take space on that drive, not on your Mac.

Moving items to the Trash doesn't free their space until the Trash is emptied, and Finder's Put Back returns an item to where it was until then. The post on an external drive that's full with no files explains where a drive's own Trash lives.

How do you check Downloads?

Press Option-Command-L to open it, then sort by size in list view. Downloads collects disk images, installers and archives you no longer need once their app is installed. Sorting by Date Added too shows what's old, not only what's large.

Shortcuts worth knowing

• Command-I: Get Info for the selected item.
• Option-Command-I: show or hide the Inspector.
• Command-J: show View Options, where Calculate all sizes lives.
• Command-2: switch the window to list view.
• Command-Slash: show or hide the status bar, with the free space.
• Space: Quick Look, to preview a large file before you decide.
• Command-F: start a search, including by file size.

Why folder sizes can mislead

Finder adds up the size of every file in a folder, which is exactly what it says it does. But a few common cases make that total a poor guide to how much space the folder really takes, or how much deleting it would free.

APFS clones are counted in full, every time

When you duplicate a file on an APFS disk, macOS can make a clone. Apple's developer documentation describes a clone as a copy that occupies no additional space on disk; both files share the same data until one of them changes.

Finder shows each clone at its full size, and a folder's total counts every one in full. Five clones of a 10 GB video can make a folder look like 50 GB while taking little more than 10 GB, and deleting four of them frees almost nothing.

Finder has no column or badge that marks a clone. The post on finding duplicate files covers how clones change what's worth removing.

Sparse files claim more than they take

Apple's documentation explains that on APFS, a sparse file's blocks are allocated only when they're written, which suits files with blank sections such as disk images and database dumps. Its size can be enormous while its space on disk is a fraction of that.

Get Info shows both numbers, so check the figure in brackets. Docker Desktop's disk image is the best-known case; the guide to Docker.raw explains why it can claim hundreds of gigabytes.

Cloud files that aren't downloaded

Files in iCloud Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive can be stored only in the cloud, with a placeholder on the Mac. On one Mac, checked in October 2026, an online-only iCloud file reported its full size while taking no space on disk.

So a cloud folder can look large in Finder and take almost nothing on the Mac, or the other way round once its files are downloaded. The post on cloud drive storage on a Mac explains how each service keeps files and how to free local copies safely.

Hard links put one file in two folders

A hard link is a second name for the same file, often in another folder. The file's data is stored once, but Finder counts it in full in each folder that holds a name for it. Deleting one name frees nothing while another remains.

You rarely make hard links yourself. Some backup tools and developer tools make them to avoid storing the same file twice, so folders those tools fill can add up to more than they take.

Small files take a whole block

A disk stores data in fixed-size blocks, and a file that isn't empty takes at least one. On one Mac's APFS disk, checked in October 2026, a five-byte text file took 4 KB on disk: one block. Get Info shows it as the size in brackets.

A folder of thousands of tiny files can therefore take noticeably more than its size. On drives formatted as exFAT, whose blocks can be much larger, the gap grows.

Compressed files take less than they say

macOS stores many of its own files and apps compressed, as the Xcode example above shows. Finder's main size is the uncompressed size, so a folder of compressed files takes less space than its total suggests. The size on disk is the number to trust.

A gigabyte is a billion bytes

Apple says storage makers count 1 GB as 1 billion bytes, and that only OS X Leopard and earlier counted in binary units. Finder counts the same way as the label on your disk. Tools that count 1 GB as 1,073,741,824 bytes show the same folder about 7% smaller.

What can mislead	What Finder's size does	Better guide
APFS clones	Counts each copy in full	Remember it was duplicated; deleting copies frees little
Sparse files	Shows the size they claim	The size on disk in brackets
Online-only cloud files	Shows their full size	The size on disk, or the cloud app
Compressed files	Shows the uncompressed size	The size on disk
Hidden folders at the top of a disk	Not in any folder you open	Disk Utility or Storage settings
Other tools' gigabytes	Decimal, like the disk's label	Check which units a tool uses

The whole disk: Storage settings and Disk Utility

Finder measures folders. To see the whole disk, including what isn't in any folder you can open, use the two tools built for it, then come back to Finder to dig in.

What does Storage settings show?

Choose Apple menu › System Settings, click General, then Storage. Apple's guide says the bar shows how much each category uses, with light gray for free space, and All Volumes shows every volume on the disk.

It groups space by kind, such as Applications, Documents and System Data, rather than by folder. The post on checking storage on a Mac explains each figure and why it can lag.

What does Disk Utility add?

Disk Utility shows how the disk is divided into volumes, how much each uses, and how much is free or purgeable. It also lists the APFS snapshots that hold space no folder shows. The guide to Disk Utility for storage walks through its window.

Why don't folders add up to the used space?

Because used space includes snapshots, the file system's own records, hidden system folders and other volumes, none of which appear as folders you can size. The guide to why the storage numbers differ lists each gap.

Get Info on the disk itself shows its Capacity, Available and Used space. Compare that with the sizes of your largest folders, and the difference is what lives outside them.

Find large files with Finder's search

Sorting folders tells you where the space is, one level at a time. Searching by size jumps straight to the large files, wherever they are.

How do you search for files over a certain size?

1. Press Command-F in Finder to start a search, and click This Mac to search everywhere.
2. Click the add button below the search field.
3. Click the first menu, choose Other, select File Size, and click OK.
4. Set it to is greater than, enter a number, and choose MB or GB.

Apple's guide adds that you can add more criteria, such as Kind, and save the search with Save as a Smart Folder, which you can keep in the sidebar. The post on finding large files goes further, with ways to decide what to keep.

Why don't folders appear in a size search?

Because Finder's search uses Spotlight's index, and Spotlight doesn't record a size for an ordinary folder. On one Mac, checked in October 2026, a folder had no size in its index while an app had one. So a size search lists files and packages such as apps, never plain folders.

Why are some large files missing from the results?

Spotlight skips folders on its Search Privacy list, and Finder leaves out system files unless you ask. To include them, add the criterion System files and set it to are included. Files in folders Spotlight hasn't indexed yet, or on disks it doesn't index, won't appear at all.

Keep an eye on folder sizes over time

Finder shows sizes as they are now. It doesn't remember what a folder weighed last month, so it can't tell you what's growing. A few habits make up for that.

Which folders are worth checking?

Start with your home folder in list view with sizes on, and note the largest few. Downloads, Movies, Pictures and your Library folder are common leaders, along with any folder where a project, a virtual machine or a media library lives.

Check again after a month. A folder that grew a lot without you adding to it, such as one inside Library, is worth a closer look before it fills the disk.

Can Finder show what changed?

Not by size. A Smart Folder that searches by Last modified date shows files changed recently, which narrows things down. For sizes over time, you need another tool; the post on tracking disk usage over time compares the options.

A worked example: the home folder

Say Storage settings shows your Mac nearly full, mostly in Documents and System Data. You open your home folder in list view, turn on Calculate all sizes, and sort by size. Movies leads, then Library, then a projects folder in Documents.

In Movies, Get Info shows an old video export far larger than everything else. In Library, the largest folder is a cache for an app you no longer use. You move the export to an external drive, check it opens there, then move the original and the cache to the Trash.

Mistakes to avoid

• Trusting a cloud folder's size. Online-only files show their full size; check the size on disk.
• Deleting duplicates to free space. If they're clones, they share space; deleting copies frees little.
• Removing files inside packages. It can break apps and damage libraries.
• Expecting folders to add up to the disk. Snapshots and hidden folders sit outside them.
• Emptying the Trash straight away. Leave it a few days; Finder's Put Back works until you empty it.

How the app does it

Wombit is a native Mac app that shows what's using your storage, explains every item in plain language, and clears it safely: Trash first, undoable and logged. File names and paths never leave your Mac.

Its scan covers the whole disk or any folder, reading only names, sizes and dates, at about 240,000 items a second on an M4 Pro. A treemap and a sunburst show every folder's size at once, with a list and search beside them. Quick Look and Reveal in Finder work on every item.

Hard links and APFS clones count once, the way macOS counts space, so a folder of duplicates isn't counted twice. Folders macOS didn't let it read are listed, not skipped, so you know when a total is incomplete.

Select anything to see what it is and how safe it is to remove: Safe, Usually safe, Review first or Managed by macOS. Only Safe items count in the headline number.

The analyzer, the map, the explanations, Undo and Put Back are free. Cleanup and What Changed, which shows what grew since last week or your last scan, are PRO: one payment of $4.99 with lifetime access. Every Pro tool's review is free to open, so you see what would go and why before you buy.