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WhatSize utility app revamped

Yes, there's Unix under the hood of Mac OS X. But plenty of Mac users prefer useful, friendly GUI utilities. This is certainly true of WhatSize, a program that lets users find what's what and how much on their drives.
Written by David Morgenstern, Contributor

Yes, there's Unix under the hood of Mac OS X. But plenty of Mac users prefer useful, friendly GUI utilities. This is certainly true of WhatSize, a program that lets users find what's what and how much on their drives.

The formerly freeware application was given a major overhaul with the release of Version 4.0 and graduated to shareware status last Friday.

The new $12.99 paid version lets you measure the files for all the users on a machine, which would be very useful in a environment with shared machines.

In addition, Version 4.0 provides a more accurate calculation of file and folder sizes, according to the author, Clyde Deda, who writes under his ID-Design company banner.

Of course, I like this little app since I always prefer GUI over command line. I'm sure that I could pound the du command into the Terminal and I might get similar results, but WhatSize is just as quick.

Even better, WhatSize puts different colors on differently-sized folders and subfolders, including invisible ones. And you can get the pathname easily and copy it with a click. There is goodness in GUI, believe it, Sys Admins.

Some folks online are giving the author a bit of flack over the transition to shareware. Come on!

The new capability is significant and the author says that the rewritten architecture will provide hooks for new features. Support our Mac community programmers.

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