The settings app only lists the updates and not their download size. Here’s how to find Windows update size using PowerShell and other tools.
Microsoft releases Windows updates almost every week. These updates are, in general, cumulative or optional in nature. As with any Windows update, each update will be several hundred megabytes. If you are on a limited data connection, you might want to know the Windows update size before downloading and installing it. That way, you can ensure that you won’t go over the data limit or spend the necessary amount of time downloading a significant update.
However, though the settings app lists all the available updates, it will not show the actual update size. This applies to both Windows 10 and Windows 11.
Using a couple of tricks, you can find out the actual Windows update size. All you have to do is execute a simple PowerShell command or use a free third-party tool. Let me show you how.
Note: The steps below will work in Windows 10 and 11.
Table of contents:
PowerShell Command to Check Windows Update Size
The easiest way to find Windows update size is to use a simple one-line PowerShell command. However, PowerShell has no built-in command. So, we will use a script developed by one of the Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professional). All we have to do is download the script from PowerShell Gallery, import it, and execute the relevant command.
1. First, we need to install the Windows Update PowerShell Module. We can do that directly from PowerShell itself. So, right-click the Start menu and select the “Windows Terminal (Admin)” or “Windows PowerShell (Admin)” option.
2. In the PowerShell tab/window, execute the below command. If PowerShell prompts you to install the Nuget module, type “Y” to continue. After installing the Nuget module, run the below command again to install the Windows Update PowerShell module.
If you are wondering, the -Force flag will remove all the prompts and make the installation smooth. You can remove the -Force flag and execute the command if you want.
Install-Module -Name PSWindowsUpdate -Force3. By default, PowerShell prevents you from importing or executing the downloaded scripts. So, before importing the module, you need to change the execution policy. So, execute the below command to change the execution policy from Restricted to RemoteSigned.
For those curious, I recently published an article detailing PowerShell execution policies and how to change them, do check it out for more information.
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
4. Next, type A and press Enter to confirm the execution policy change.
5. After changing the execution policy, use the below command to import the PSWindowsUpdate module.
Import-Module PSWindowsUpdate
6. Finally, execute the below command, and PowerShell will list all the available updates for your system. The command can take a few seconds to return the results. So, wait a bit. You can see the size of each update under the Size section.
Get-WUList
That is all. Once you know the size, you can close the PowerShell window. If you are adventurous, take a look at the official PSWindowsUpdate module download page and experiment with other commands. The module can also do other things like show the update history, download, install, uninstall, etc.
Link to Windows Update PowerShell Module page — https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/PSWindowsUpdate/2.2.0.2
Use Windows Update Minitool to Find Windows Update Size
If you don’t like using PowerShell or are not comfortable using the command line, you can use a free and portable third-party tool called Windows Update Minitool. This simple tool will instantly tell you the Windows updates size.
1. To get started, download Windows Update Minitool, open the zip file and extract the executable to your desktop.
2. After extracting, double-click on the executable. In the application, click on the “Refresh” icon.
3. As soon as you click on the icon, the tool will list all the available updates for your system. You can see the size of each update under the Size section.
Note: The application may show cumulative update size in GBs. That is inaccurate as Windows 10 only downloads the updates not installed on your system. Usually, the update size will not be more than a few hundred megabytes.
4. If you don’t want to download a particular update, you can hide it. Select the checkbox next to the update and click on the “Hide” icon.
Download Windows Update Minitool — https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/Windows-Update-MiniTool.shtml
Alternate download link — https://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/windows_update_minitool.html
That is all. It is that simple to find the Windows update size in Windows 10.
If you like this article, check out how to pause Windows 10 updates and how to show download and upload speed on the taskbar.
