Question 1

What is Space Wizard?

Accepted Answer

Space Wizard is a cross-platform desktop app that measures a drive folder by folder and shows you where the space went — as a bar chart or a donut — then helps you get it back: duplicate detection, multi-select cleanup, and deletion through the system recycle bin rather than a permanent unlink. It works on local drives and on remote hosts reached over SFTP, FTPS or FTP. Windows, macOS and Linux.

Question 2

Can it scan a server, not just this machine?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Save a connection — host, port, username, and either a password, a private key or your SSH agent — and the remote filesystem behaves like a local drive: mounts are listed, folders are measured, duplicates are found and files can be deleted. On a host with a shell it runs a single `find` pass that streams the whole tree back in one round trip; on anything else it falls back to a concurrent directory walk that works over plain SFTP or FTP.

Question 3

Does duplicate detection download my files to compare them?

Accepted Answer

No. On a remote host the hashing runs on that host — `dd` plus `sha1sum` for the 4 KB prefix pass, `sha1sum` for the full pass — so what crosses the wire is a few kilobytes of hashes, not gigabytes of file. Only on an account with no shell at all does it fall back to reading bytes, and even then the first pass reads just 4 KB per candidate.

Question 4

How does the duplicate check work?

Accepted Answer

Three passes, cheapest first. Files are grouped by exact byte size; anything with a unique size can't have a twin and is dropped. Survivors get a SHA-1 hash of their first 4,096 bytes. Only files that still match are hashed in full. A 4 GB video that differs in its opening kilobytes therefore costs 4 KB of reading, not 4 GB. Groups are reported largest-file-first, so the biggest wins land on screen first.

Question 5

What does the free tier actually include?

Accepted Answer

Everything the app does — usage breakdown, duplicate detection, remote hosts, safe deletion — on your home drive, up to 100 GB measured per scan. Pro removes the size cap and unlocks every other drive on the machine: externals, second disks, mapped volumes. There is no third tier and no feature that only exists in a brochure.

Question 6

How is Space Wizard different from DuplicateDuster?

Accepted Answer

Different jobs. Space Wizard answers "where did my disk go?" and clears duplicates as a side-effect of browsing, using a fast three-pass SHA-1 check tuned for inline use. DuplicateDuster is a dedicated deduplication tool: it compares one set of folders against another with SHA-256, matches whole duplicate folders, and offers hard-linking and secure erase as ways to reclaim the space. Use Space Wizard to find the problem; use DuplicateDuster when deduplication is the problem.

Question 7

Does it need an internet connection?

Accepted Answer

Not for scanning. A scan never touches the network. The app makes two optional outbound calls in its whole life: validating a licence key when you activate Pro, and one update check twenty seconds after launch. Machines that never go online can activate Pro from an offline licence file instead.

Question 8

Why do the totals look smaller than what Windows reports?

Accepted Answer

Usually because some folders couldn't be read. Space Wizard counts them and says so in a banner — "N folders couldn't be read" — with a one-click restart as Administrator, rather than quietly reporting a smaller number. It also goes out of its way to include files Windows won't let a normal program open: pagefile.sys and its relatives are sized from the directory entry, which is roughly 15 GB most scanners simply lose on a typical C: drive.

Question 9

What does the storage chart actually show?

Accepted Answer

The direct children of the folder you're standing in — the nine largest, plus an "Other" bucket — sized by everything underneath them, as bars or a donut. Open a folder and the chart follows you down. It is a per-level breakdown, not a nested-rectangle treemap.

Question 10

Can it compare today's scan to last week's, to show what grew?

Accepted Answer

Not yet. Every scan is a fresh, on-demand snapshot. Historical comparison between scans is on the roadmap, not in the current build — we don't advertise it until it ships.

Question 11

Is it a full file manager — dual-pane browsing, ZIP archives?

Accepted Answer

No. Space Wizard has a single-pane browser with Files, Duplicates and Usage tabs, plus filtering, sorting and Explorer/Finder-style context-menu actions — but no dual-pane view and no built-in archive support. If you need a full dual-pane manager with document tools, that's OfficeBrief.

Question 12

What happens when I delete something?

Accepted Answer

On a local drive it moves to your recycle bin or trash, so a wrong click is recoverable the normal way. On a remote host there is no trash to move it to, so the delete is permanent — the button says so before you press it.

Question 13

Does scanning skip my cloud-sync folders?

Accepted Answer

By default, yes. OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, Box, pCloud and MEGA folders are excluded automatically — their placeholder files don't reflect real local usage, and walking them can make the provider download the real files. You can switch the exclusion off if you want them counted.

Question 14

Is it safe to point at a production server?

Accepted Answer

A scan is read-only: it lists directories and reads file sizes, and on hosts with a shell it runs `find` and `sha1sum`. Nothing is written or deleted unless you select files and confirm. SSH host keys are verified before any credential is sent, and saved passwords go into the OS keyring — never a plain-text file.

Question 15

Where can I get it?

Accepted Answer

Space Wizard 1.0 is in free open beta for Windows, macOS and Linux — grab it from the download page. It updates itself from there afterwards, with a check that runs once at launch and never interrupts a scan.

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