Free space alerts

Windows · macOS · Linux

Heft can warn you when a drive is getting full, before programs start failing to save.

Setting the limit

Alerts are on by default, and a drive counts as almost full when it has less than 10 GB free. To change that, scan something so the toolbar shows the View menu, then under Free space alerts:

untick Warn when a drive has less than to turn alerts off, or
pick 5, 10, 20 or 50 GB.

For small drives, the limit is a tenth of the drive if that's less, so a 32 GB USB stick with 4 GB free doesn't set it off.

What happens when a drive gets full

While Heft is running it checks your drives once a minute. When one drops below the limit:

a warning appears at the top of the window with the drive's free space, and a button to See suggestions (if it's the drive you scanned) or Scan it;
you get one desktop notification for that drive. You won't get another until it has recovered and filled up again.

Press Dismiss to hide the warning in the window.

Notifications use the notification area on Windows, Notification Center on macOS, and notify-send on Linux. On a Mac, clicking a notification from Heft opens Heft. If nothing appears on Linux, install your distribution's libnotify package, which provides notify-send.

Keeping watch in the background (Windows and macOS)

Two more options in the same menu let Heft keep an eye on your drives when you're not using it. On Windows:

Keep watching in the notification area after closing. Closing the window hides Heft next to the clock instead of quitting. Click the icon to bring the window back, or right-click it to quit.
Start with Windows, in the notification area. Heft starts hidden when you sign in and only speaks up when a drive is almost full. This adds a Heft value under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run; untick it to remove it.

On a Mac:

Keep watching in the menu bar after closing. Closing the window hides Heft in the menu bar instead of quitting. Click its icon for a menu with each drive's free space, Open Heft and Quit Heft.
Start at login, in the menu bar. Heft starts hidden when you log in and only speaks up when a drive is almost full. This adds a launch agent, ~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.github.gjnail.heft.plist, and macOS shows a "Background Items Added" notice. Untick it to remove it. Move Heft to your Applications folder and open it from there first; if macOS is running it from a temporary copy, Heft says so.

To start Heft hidden yourself, for example from a shortcut, run heft.exe --tray on Windows or heft --tray on a Mac (see Command line).