Is there a way in Unix to see the biggest directories on disk?
I need to know why I'm almost out of space on the server,= and I don't know where most of the space is used.
Asked
Active
Viewed 9.5k times
57
-
2possible duplicate of [Find largest directories/files recursively](http://serverfault.com/questions/25043/find-largest-directories-files-recursively) – Dennis Williamson Nov 11 '10 at 23:35
-
Here is a good one: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/4681/how-do-you-sort-du-output-by-size - it says to use `du | sort -h` then use `tail` - or, you can use `sort -rh` so the largest are at the beginning and you can use `more` to see it. This is working great on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS in August 2017. – SDsolar Aug 17 '17 at 08:34
10 Answers
74
-
6Nice. It works pretty much the way I'd do it by hand (with `du | sort`), but with WAY less typing. – Steven Monday Nov 12 '10 at 04:19
-
1This is much better. just install ncdu and type ncdu command on the directory you want to analyze, it works very fast. – Jamol Oct 07 '18 at 13:20
-
72
Try: du --max-depth=7 /* | sort -n - it won't just tell you directories, and there will be duplicates, but it will list everything 7 levels deep and sort them by size order.
James L
- 6,025
- 1
- 22
- 26
-
147 levels all at once might be overwhelming. I would start with `--max-depth=0` (or rather, use `--summarize`/`-s`), and then drill into the largest directories by hand. – Steven Monday Nov 11 '10 at 23:31
-
Good point, just chose that number as that's how far I typically end up going before I find something useful. – James L Nov 13 '10 at 01:36
-
3what about `du -cs * | sort -n` for an overview of which directory is bigger? – lorenzog Jan 07 '13 at 15:03
-
7
I suggest you to use baobab, which will give you a graphical overview of your disk usage. It can also be used for remote folder (through ssh, ftp,...) to scan the disk usage on a remote server for instance.
Edit: If you would like to investigate the disk usage directly on the server with your shell access and not remotely, and you would like a tool more convenient than du, you can also have a try with durep which will generate a report of the disk usage with bar graphs.
uloBasEI
- 686
- 1
- 4
- 11
3
I usually use something like this:
du -ch / | sort
You can apply a depth restriction using --max-depth= if you don't want to see past a certain level from your target, like so:
du -ch --max-depth=4 /
2
Find biggest folders and their biggest subfolders successively
I parse through each folder level, to find the root of the problem, like this:
iteration 1
du -h --max-depth=1 -t 1G /Dir0/Dir1 | sort -n | tail -10
iteration 2
du -h --max-depth=1 -t 1G /Dir0/Dir1/biggestFolderInDir1 | sort -n | tail -10
-h: human readable sizes
-t 1G: only list directories bigger than 1G
sort -n: sort numerically (2G will be considered bigger than 1T)
tail -10: only list the last (biggest) 10 items
Amanda
- 23
- 4
0
Try df & du -sh /. And recursively du -sh. Not the best solution though.
0
Something like
sudo du / | sort -n
Will give you a quick answer (last entries are largest files/directories)
N J
- 101
- 2
-
2Define quick? In my experience this usually takes at least 5-10 minutes. – James L Nov 11 '10 at 22:25
0
I always use syntax like
du -sm --max-depth=4 /path/i/want/to/drill | sort -nr | head -n 20.
max-depth and head parameters can vary, of course, but the above would list 20 biggest directories.
Janne Pikkarainen
- 31,852
- 4
- 58
- 81
0
I'm regularly running du -dak > du-dak.out at the top of each file system. Then, I can get a graphical display with xdu < du-dak.out. This can be done remotely after transferring the du-dak.out file over the network should you only have text access.
jlliagre
- 8,861
- 18
- 36