compactgui

CompactGUI provides a user-friendly graphical interface for Windows' built-in transparent filesystem compression introduced in Windows 10 via the Overlay Filter (WOF) driver. Unlike traditional archive formats (ZIP/RAR), compressed files remain fully accessible and executable in place — they are decompressed on-the-fly into RAM at runtime while staying compressed on disk. The tool targets game libraries and large applications (e.g., ARK: Survival Evolved 169 GB → 91 GB, Adobe Photoshop 1.71 GB → 886 MB) and can compress any folder. Key features: - Four compression algorithms: XPRESS4K (fastest), XPRESS8K (default, balanced), XPRESS16K (stronger), LZX (strongest, for cold data) - Real-time progress visualization and compression statistics - Configurable skip lists for poorly-compressible file types, editable per folder - Community-powered compression estimation database (12,000+ Steam games from 100,000+ submissions) with algorithmic fallback for non-Steam titles - Windows Explorer context menu integration - Folder analysis to view existing compression status - Background Watcher that monitors folders (e.g., Steam updates) and automatically re-compresses changed files Caveats: Not recommended for games using DirectStorage on Windows 11, as decompression overhead negates GPU-direct loading benefits. Whole-drive or OS compression is not supported — use `compact /compactOS` for that. Installation via GitHub Releases or `winget install CompactGUI`. The project includes a wiki with community-tested game results and accepts submissions to improve estimation accuracy.