# IridiumIO/CompactGUI

Reduce the space taken up by games and programs on disk by using native Windows APIs

Repository: https://github.com/IridiumIO/CompactGUI
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/compactgui
Language: Visual Basic .NET
License: GPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: compression, standalone, windows, game, compressing-folders, windows-10, vbnet, wpf, windows11, dotnet, dotnet9, csharp
Last push: 2026-08-26T05:23:06+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 99/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 99, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3247, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 7, "gap_med": 10, "n_releases_24m": 12}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 8589, forks 329 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:23.681895+00:00)

## What it is
CompactGUI is a Windows desktop application that transparently compresses games and programs using the native Windows 10+ Overlay Filter (WOF) compression algorithms, the same ones behind compact.exe. Compressed files remain fully usable, saving large amounts of disk space with virtually no performance loss.

## Use cases
- reduce the disk space taken up by large games
- compress program folders without zipping them
- free up storage on a small SSD
- compress folders transparently on Windows 10/11
- shrink game install sizes like ARK from 169GB to 91GB
- GUI alternative to compact.exe

## When to choose
- you are on Windows 10 or 11 and want to save disk space on games or programs
- you want files to remain directly launchable after compression
- you prefer a GUI over the compact.exe command line

## When to avoid
- you need cross-platform or non-Windows compression
- you need archives that can be moved to other systems or extracted elsewhere
- you are running an OS older than Windows 10

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: compression, file-system, gui
- domain: files, windows, gaming-tools, developer-tools
- platform: windows, dotnet
- tags: transparent-compression, wof-driver, disk-space, game-compression, compact-exe, wpf, desktop

## Member repositories
- IridiumIO/CompactGUI (main) score 99

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:23.681895+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:26:12.841321+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/IridiumIO/CompactGUI (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:23.681895+00:00, sha 925933a06dec)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.