How do you find out whether a particular folder (or collection of files and/or folders) will fit on a USB flash drive. Here’s how to go about it:
- Plug in your flash drive and wait a few seconds for Windows to register its arrival. If any dialogues or windows open as a result, just close them.
- In Windows 8, press Win+E to open File Explorer. In other versions of Windows, open the Start menu and click Computer.
- In the Computer window, right-click the icon for your flash drive and choose Properties. In the dialog that appears, find the line beginning Free space and at the far right you’ll see the space available on the flash drive. (You might like to keep this dialog open as you follow the next few steps, perhaps moving it to one corner of your screen to get it out of the way for a moment.)
- Now you need to see whether the folder (or files) you want to copy to the drive are smaller or larger than this. Make your way to the folder containing the items you want to copy and select them. If it’s just a single folder you want to copy, that just takes a single click; if you want to copy multiple folders, click the first to select it, then hold down the Ctrl key as you click the others.
- Right-click one of the items you've selected and choose Properties. In the dialog that appears, you’ll see the total size of everything you've selected alongside the word Size. (If you selected several folders, or a folder containing a large number of files, you may have to wait a few seconds while Windows tots up all their sizes and the total is displayed.) Now, of course, it’s just a case of doing a quick comparison between this figure and the one you found in step 3.
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