An export folder is easy to create and hard to understand. You download a library, or copy a folder of photos, videos, and documents, and you end up with a directory containing thousands of files in dozens of subfolders. The total size is visible in a properties dialog, but the composition is not: how much of it is video, how much is photos, which file types dominate, and which single files are eating the most space. Without that breakdown, cleanup is guesswork. You might delete a folder of small documents while a single forgotten video consumes more than all of them combined.

Summarising the folder by type and size turns guesswork into a plan. Count the files, add up the bytes per type, list the largest files, and rank the extensions. That summary tells you where the space actually is, which is usually not where you assumed. It also tells you what kinds of files you hold, which matters for the next step: photos need a different tidy-up from videos, and documents need a different one again.

The iCloud Export Folder Analyzer tool produces that summary from files you choose locally. It never connects to an iCloud account, never logs in, never syncs, and never fetches anything from Apple. It counts and sizes only the files the file picker hands it, in your browser, and it does not upload, move, or delete anything. The result is a report, not a change, which makes it safe to run before any cleanup decision.

How the analysis works

The tool examines each chosen file's name, extension, and size. It groups files by type, using the extension as the type indicator, and for each type it counts the files and adds up their sizes. It also ranks extensions by total size or count, so the most significant types appear first, and it identifies the single largest file in the selection. Together those figures give a compact picture: total files, total size, the breakdown by type, the top extensions, and the largest individual file.

Extensions are a practical but imperfect way to identify types. A file named VID_0001.mp4 is almost certainly a video, and a file named IMG_0001.jpg is almost certainly a photo, but a file with no extension, or with a misleading one, will be grouped by whatever its name says, not by its actual contents. Treat the type breakdown as a strong guide rather than a perfect census, and investigate any large "unknown" or extension-less group before acting on it.

The folder picker deserves a note. In browsers that support it, the file input offers a folder picker, so you can choose a whole folder and its contents in one step. In browsers that do not support folder picking, the input falls back to multi-file selection, and you choose the files yourself. Either way, the analysis covers only the files the picker hands over. If you select a folder but the browser does not include a subfolder, that subfolder's files are invisible to the analysis, and the totals will understate the export. Check the file count against what you expect before trusting the totals.

A worked example

Take a small sample of five files whose sizes add up to 131,450,000 bytes. The largest file in the sample is VID_0001.mp4 at 120,000,000 bytes, which alone accounts for most of the total: 120,000,000 divided by 131,450,000 is about 91.3 percent. The remaining four files together total 11,450,000 bytes. That single comparison reframes the cleanup completely. If the goal is to free space, the video is the decision that matters; deleting all four smaller files combined would free less than a tenth of what dealing with the video would free.

Now apply the same reading to a real export. Suppose the summary shows 2,000 photos totalling 8 gigabytes, 40 videos totalling 30 gigabytes, and 500 documents totalling 1 gigabyte. The photos are the most numerous, but the videos hold most of the space. A cleanup that organises photos beautifully while ignoring videos has addressed the count, not the storage. Conversely, if the goal is to reduce clutter rather than space, the photo count is the number that matters, and the video total is secondary. The summary does not choose your goal; it tells you which lever serves the goal you already have.

Use the largest-file figure as a starting point for review, not as an automatic deletion candidate. A large file may be the most important file in the export, such as a long family video. Open the largest few files, confirm what they are, and then decide: keep, compress, move to archival storage, or delete. The analyzer's job is to point you at the files worth deciding about, not to decide for you.

Common mistakes

The first mistake is trusting a partial selection. If the file count looks far smaller than the export you meant to analyse, the picker did not hand over everything, and the totals are incomplete. Re-select, choosing the folder itself where the browser allows it, and compare counts. The second mistake is deleting by extension. Removing every file of a type because that type is large can destroy files you wanted, such as deleting all videos to save space when one video was precious and the rest were trivial. Decide file by file, starting with the largest.

The third mistake is confusing count with size. A thousand tiny files and one huge file demand different responses, and a summary that shows only counts, or only sizes, will mislead you. Read both columns together. The fourth mistake is treating the analysis as a cleanup. The tool changes nothing; files remain exactly where they were after you run it. Cleanup is a separate, deliberate step, and keeping the two separate is what makes the analysis safe to run early and often.

Honest limitations

This tool counts and sizes files you choose locally, in your browser, grouped by extension, with top extensions and the largest file identified. It never accesses an iCloud account, never logs in, never syncs, and never downloads anything from Apple. It does not move, delete, compress, or modify any file, and it does not inspect file contents to verify types; a misnamed file is grouped by its extension, not its contents. It covers only the files the picker hands over, so in browsers without folder-picker support, or where a subfolder is not included, the totals will be partial. It also does not deduplicate: the same file present twice counts twice, which is correct for storage purposes but means duplicate analysis is a separate step.

Closing

Analyse first, then decide. A breakdown by type, size, and largest file tells you where the space and the clutter really are, and that knowledge makes every later step cheaper. For those later steps, find exact duplicates with the iCloud Duplicate Photo Finder tool, plan storage with the iCloud Storage Calculator tool, and read our guide How to Clean and Transform CSV Files if you export the summary into a spreadsheet for further work.