AbstractThis research explores visualisation of data for working with personal digital archives (PDA). Large scale PDAs, comprising content from several personal hard disk drive images, are not receptive to “open the box and take a look” approaches to appraisal traditionally adopted by analogue archives. By employing a Sunburst visualisation to represent file directory structures, this paper demonstrates that it is possible to gain an “at a glance” comprehension of content organisation and date distribution, whilst concurrently allowing for the dynamic and interactive exploration of information such as usage patterns, content metadata and original order relevant to archival appraisal processes.