Need to keep your hard drive from being crapped up?  Are you a power-downloader with no organizational skills?  Do you want to see exactly where the space on your hard drive is going and have your computer automatically shuffle and sort new files around? 

You're in luck.  We've assembled a batch of freeware utilities that are, without a doubt, the most essential file management tools you'll want to have on your PC.  We use them to automate mundane tasks like file moving and deletion, and better still, to determine exactly where all the wasted space on our drives are going.   We would kill to have these feature integrated into Windows Explorer, but no dice thus far.  But we can't complain much, because we've saved so much time with these small utilities that we can't ever think about going back to a life without them.

Auto Delete

What it does: Specify a target folder and a time period.  The utility will automatically crawl through this folder and nuke anything that falls outside of the window you specify.  This is perfect for temporary file locations, default download directories, or anywhere else where you don't want forgotten clutter to fill up your machine.  And you can even exclude certain files from the axe, just in case you really need to separate your mission-critical files from potential junk.

Download it here!

SysExporter

What it does: If your computer is already in dire straits, with files and directories in every possible place and stretched out to an endless amount of nested folders... chill out.  SysExporter is a handy way for mapping out your directories in a different format, like an Excel spreadsheet or HTML page.  It captures the nesting information of a directory tree and allows you to convert that into a searchable database. You can then parse out exactly how you've structured your hard drive and make the necessary fixes without having to click back and forth between an infinite number of folders.

Download it here!

SpaceMonger

What it does: So you just picked up that brand new terabyte drive only to find that you've filled 80% of it with your data.  But you swear that you don't have that much on your drive, so where's the bulk?  Enter SpaceMonger -- a utility that charts out exactly where your biggest files are residing in a graphical or table-based format.  Once you've run a detailed analysis, you can make simple file commands directly in the program itself.  There' s no need to switch back and forth between SpaceMonger and Windows Explorer when purging your drive of unnecessary junk!

Download it here!

WinDirStat

What it does: In essence, this program performs a similar function to SpaceMonger.  We include it because we appreciate its graphical representation of your drive, which is far prettier than SpaceMonger's.  If you want to chart out your storage issues with a bit of flair, opt for WinDirStat over SpaceMonger.

Download it here!

Download Mover

What it does: Here's the biggie.  This tiny utility constantly scans folders you specify.  When files of a given type hit the folder, they're automatically moved to a location of your choosing.  If you use, say, any Internet browser under the sun, this means that you can just download all of your files to a single, default directory.  Download Mover will work behind-the-scenes to make sure that your MP3s always end up in your music folder, your JPGs in your pictures folder, and your ZIPs in your... um.  Compressed files folder.  Hey, people can get pretty thorough...

Download it here!