Catching a Local Disk Leak With an Event-Driven Filesystem Watcher
Oct 20, 2025Oct 20, 2025
My PC storage started shrinking with no clear cause. Usual disk tools showed growth but not the live source. I wrote DeltaWatch to observe changes as they happen and spotlight “which directories are changing size right now.” DeltaWatch listens to OS filesystem events (no scanning) and sorts directories by live size delta. Point it at a suspect root, optionally hide...
My PC storage started shrinking with no clear cause. Usual disk tools showed growth but not the live source. I created DeltaWatch to observe changes as they happen and spotlight “which directories are changing size right now.”
DeltaWatch listens to OS filesystem events (no scanning) and sorts directories by live size delta. Point it at a suspect root, optionally hide noisy subtrees, and toggle recent events when needed. In my case, the log folder jumped to the top, confirming the leak; fixing log settings stopped it.
How it works:
- Event aggregation and per-directory delta tracking
- Live terminal view (stats, recent events, top directories)
- CLI and observer setup
Finally I detected the culprit: It was VS Code logs ballooning quietly.
I use it from time to time now when something feels off on disk. If it’s useful to you, check it out and adapt it: https://github.com/vtietz/deltawatch.git. Contributions are welcome.
