list dirs and subdirs using most disk space in a tree format

progama · 01-26-2022, 05:08 AM

Hello All!!

I'm looking for regular shell commands to achieve the following. Let's say I have a large dir (several hundred Gigs) and I want to find out which dirs/subdirs are utlizing most space beginning from the main dir and want to be able to choose how many dirs and subdirs to be displayed:

>cd main_dir
>command <display 5 entry in main dir> <choose depth 2> <display no of entries at each depth 4>

size X
size X1
size X2
size X3
size X4
size Y
.....similar to X.

All results are in decreasing order.

Thanks!

Guttorm · 01-26-2022, 06:11 AM

There's a command ncdu that works a bit like that. It's interactive, so when you start it, it displays the size of all sub-directories. And you can browse the sub-directories with usage.

You probably need to install it, as it's not installed by default. When you have, type "man ncdu" for options and examples. I don't think it has a max depth, but you can export the report in a cron script, and browse it later.

pan64 · 01-26-2022, 06:17 AM

and you can use du too:

Code:

du -sh *| sort -hr

allend · 01-26-2022, 07:35 AM

This is a little script that I use. For long listings I pipe the output to a pager like less.

Code:

#!/bin/bash

# Script to show a quick summary of a directory's disk usage.
# Defaults to current directory

DIR=${1:-$(pwd)}
# Handle the "." directory case so that grep works
[[ $DIR == "." ]] && EDIR="\." || EDIR=$DIR
du -c "$DIR" | grep  -v "$EDIR$"  | sort -k1nr

shruggy · 01-26-2022, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guttorm

I don't think it has a max depth

But then gt5 definitely has it: both --max-depth and --max-lines.

dutree and durep have similar options:

dutree: -d/--depth and -a/--aggr

durep: -td/--text-depth and -hs/--hide-size

progama · 01-26-2022, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guttorm

There's a command ncdu that works a bit like that. It's interactive, so when you start it, it displays the size of all sub-directories. And you can browse the sub-directories with usage.

You probably need to install it, as it's not installed by default. When you have, type "man ncdu" for options and examples. I don't think it has a max depth, but you can export the report in a cron script, and browse it later.

Thanks Guttorm! I tried ncdu but for larger dirs it simply crashes

Guttorm · 01-26-2022, 11:11 AM

Hmm. I've used it for big volumes and many millions files, and I can't remember seeing it crash. Just very slow on very many files.

When there are lots of files/directories, it probably needs a lot of RAM, but I have plenty. Any error messages?

Maybe try the other solutions? I think a max-depth would help here.

progama · 01-26-2022, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guttorm

Hmm. I've used it for big volumes and many millions files, and I can't remember seeing it crash. Just very slow on very many files.

When there are lots of files/directories, it probably needs a lot of RAM, but I have plenty. Any error messages?

Maybe try the other solutions? I think a max-depth would help here.

No error message as such unfortunately. It will simply exit.

pan64 · 01-28-2022, 03:30 AM

you can always check $?.
And in such cases strace may give additional info.

MadeInGermany · 01-28-2022, 09:36 AM

Code:

du -axh | sort -h

If you don't mind a mix of filesndirs.
Note: the -x skips sub mounts.