Vacuon

Joedson Alves·Joedsonalves.Vacuon

Disk space analyzer that reads the NTFS MFT directly and shows what it is about to delete.

Vacuon finds where the space on a Windows disk went. It reads the NTFS Master File Table straight off the volume, which indexes a million files in seconds instead of minutes, and falls back to the Windows API on volumes where that is not possible. Images and videos are shown as thumbnails in six sizes, so you can tell which of five large renders is the final one without opening any of them. Deletion goes to the Recycle Bin by default, and permanently only behind a confirmation you have to tick, with a protection list that refuses the volume root, Windows, System32 and kernel-owned files. It also finds files with identical content, draws the volume as a treemap where every box is sized by what it occupies, and can set files aside in a quarantine it can restore them from, instead of deleting them. It cleans by rule as well, and where the work belongs inside Windows it calls Microsoft's own tools rather than deleting files by hand. A live monitor reads the NTFS change journal and shows which folders are growing right now. Pictures that look alike are grouped by a perceptual fingerprint, and a preview panel shows media details, text and images without leaving the app. Every scan cross-checks the space it attributed to files against what the volume reports as used, and says so when the two disagree. The interface is available in English and Portuguese. The fast path needs Administrator; without it the app still works through the slower traversal and says which one it used.