Get-Size - a PowerShell cmdlet for human-readable file and folder size listings

Description

This PowerShell Core Get-Size cmdlet shows a human-readable size value when listing files and folders, similar to Bash du -h.

Get-ChildItem shows file sizes under the Length column in bytes, which can be difficult to understand at a glance, and in any case it only shows the property for files, not folders, e.g.:

Get-Size displays the size of both files and folders, in a more easily understandable format.

The text in the size column is color-coded for clarity, with a different color for sizes up to 1MB, sizes between 1MB and 1GB, and for sizes 1GB and above. Sizes are truncated to two decimal places, e.g:

Folder highlighting is preserved as per the user's terminal colour settings, however the item type is shown in the leftmost column in case the user's colour settings don't differentiate files and folders. This is particularly useful because the results are sorted by either Name or Size, so folders and files may be adjacent in the results list, e.g.:

Usage

Input can be items (aka symbols) in a comma separated list, e.g.:

Get-Size D:\Music, D:\Pictures, myfile.txt

Variables storing a list of items can also be used, e.g.:

$mylist = Get-ChildItem D:\Documents\
Get-Size $mylist  

Combinations of the two are supported:

Get-Size $mylist, D:\Pictures

The modifiable options are -SortProperty and -Descending / -Ascending.
-Descending and -Ascending are simple switches.
-SortProperty expects either Name or Size.

The options can be given in any order, e.g.

Get-Size -Descending -SortProperty Name

Get-Size -SortProperty Name -Descending  

By default Get-Size sorts its results by size in ascending order, so -Ascending can be ommitted.

Leaving out filenames, variables or wildcards will default to showing the content of the current directory, the same way Get-ChildItem works, so the following are all equivalent:

Get-Size  

Get-Size -Ascending  

Get-Size -Ascending -SortProperty Size  

Get-Size -Ascending -SortProperty Size *  

Get-Size is fully documented; type Get-Help Get-Size for documentation on using the cmdlet, including examples:

Notes

Large folders with deep nested structures and many files may take some time to calculate. Write-Progress has been implemented as a convenience to the user.

Installation

Get-Size requires PowerShell Core, minimum version 7.0.
To install, clone this repo and copy the SizeModule folder to the Modules folder for your user, typically:

• Linux / macOS
  • ~/.local/share/powershell/Modules
• Windows
  • %USERPROFILE%\Documents\PowerShell\Modules

(Entering $env:PSModulePath at the command prompt will reveal the location on your system.)

Tip

Set-Location ($env:PSModulePath).Split(';')[0] # cd to the module location on Windows
Set-Location ($env:PSModulePath).Split(':')[0] # macOS / Linux version

Then at the prompt enter:

Import-Module SizeModule

Once imported the module will be available for all future sessions.