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Scan your first folder

This tutorial is for anyone opening MacDirStat for the first time. By the end, you will have scanned a real folder and seen its contents as a treemap.

Before you start

You need MacDirStat installed and a folder you are curious about, for example your Downloads folder.

1. Open MacDirStat

Launch the app. You see an empty dashboard with a Scan button.

2. Choose a folder

Click Scan. A folder picker opens.

  1. Navigate to the folder you want to inspect.
  2. Select it and click Scan in the picker.

MacDirStat starts walking the folder tree immediately. Large folders take longer; a progress indicator shows the scan is still running.

3. Read the result

When the scan finishes, you see a radial treemap: a ring of colored arcs around a center point. Each arc is a file or folder; the size of the arc is proportional to how much disk space it uses.

  • Hover over an arc to see its name and size.
  • Click an arc that represents a folder to zoom into it.
  • Click the center to zoom back out.

Next step

The colors are not random. Continue to How to read the treemap to learn what each color means and how to change the color scheme.