Catching a Local Disk Leak With an Event-Driven Filesystem Watcher

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 noisy subtrees, and—when needed—toggle recent events. 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.

Categories:AllgemeinProjectsPython

Vincent Tietz

After many years in agile software development, my curiosity has shifted toward the next wave of transformation — how AI changes the way we create, collaborate, and lead. I’m fascinated by how technology and human creativity can grow together. My work now centers on building products and cultures that not only use AI but understand it, bringing people, methods, and organisations into the same rhythm of change.