AutoCompress

Although disk space is less of a concern, with cloud services providing enough space to even use on the go, bundling up multiple files and folders together can still fill up drives. There are various methods you can use to save some space without actually removing any files, and this is exactly what AutoCompress lets you accomplish through Windows compression features.

On the bright side of things, the application doesn’t even need to be installed on your PC in order to function, and can thus be launched as soon as you finish downloading it. You can store it on a thumb drive to carry around and use on other computers besides your own. What’s more, stability isn’t affected, because compression doesn’t change any registry entries.

The window which shows up on launch holds all functions you need to work with. Visually speaking, the layout is pretty organized, with instant trigger of compression or uncompression, and various details shown in dedicated sections.

Note that the application is only capable of performing compression on NTFS drives, even if they’re fixed or removable. The system drive is targeted by default, but you can change it. Unfortunately, changing the target drive is only done by pasting the path in the dedicated field, because there’s no browse dialog, and dropping a folder over the main window has no effect.

By default, compression and uncompression are both enabled, with several preset values for age, size, and percentage. You can first scan the drive to view how much space can be saved through compression, and later on trigger it. Functionality of files is not affected by compression.

AutoCompress is practical tool to save space through compression, which is especially useful for removable storage devices. Although you can only process NTFS drives, the operation is flawlessly performed in little time.