Home
C#
Get Directory Size
Updated Jan 5, 2024
Dot Net Perls
Directory size. A C# method can calculate the total size of a directory. It considers each file. It returns the total bytes of all files.
Some uses. This C# method is useful for compression or file transfers. We determine the size of a directory. We can detect changes in directory sizes.
Directory.GetFiles
Directory
File
Example. We can use the Directory class and a foreach-loop. We write our own custom method—we sum the length of each file, returning the total size in bytes.
Start The program calls Directory.GetFiles(). This gets all the files matching the "filter" at the directory in the path specified.
Array
Next The program loops over each file. The foreach-loop looks through each file name and then creates a new FileInfo object.
Info FileInfo allows us to easily find certain informational properties of the file.
FileInfo
Finally It returns the sum of all the bytes in the first level of the folder. This value is stored in the long type.
long, ulong
using System; using System.IO; class Program { static void Main() { var size = GetDirectorySize(@"programs\"); Console.WriteLine(size); } static long GetDirectorySize(string path) { // Get array of all file names. string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(path, "*.*"); // Calculate total bytes of all files in a loop. long totalBytes = 0; foreach (string name in files) { // Use FileInfo to get length of each file. FileInfo info = new FileInfo(name); totalBytes += info.Length; } // Return total size return totalBytes; } }
382627
All directories. To get files in nested folders, use the SearchOption.AllDirectories argument. This returns an array with files from subdirectories.
File List Recursive
Info You can modify the method to return only the sizes of files of a specific type (like PNG).
SearchOption.AllDirectories "*.*" "*.png"
Summary. We measured directory sizes in bytes. We can use a combination of Directory methods and FileInfo objects to sum the bytes.
Dot Net Perls is a collection of pages with code examples, which are updated to stay current. Programming is an art, and it can be learned from examples.
Donate to this site to help offset the costs of running the server. Sites like this will cease to exist if there is no financial support for them.
Sam Allen is passionate about computer languages, and he maintains 100% of the material available on this website. He hopes it makes the world a nicer place.
This page was last updated on Jan 5, 2024 (edit).
Home
Changes
© 2007-2025 Sam Allen