Check your Disk Usage on Ubuntu with Disk Usage Analyzer Ubuntu Linux includes a great Disk Usage Analyzer GUI tool that will let you figure out what files and folders are taking up all the space on your hard drive. This is one of those great little tools that should be bundled with every operating system.
You’ll find the tool on your Accessories menu:
When you start the tool, you have a choice of opening the filesystem or a particular folder. If you choose filesystem, you will have to wait for a while because it’s going through and checking all the files and folders on your system… but it’s worth the wait when you see the nice GUI in action:
Right click on anything in the tree, and you will see a list of options:
Open will obviously open that folder with Gnome’s file browser. List all files in folder will show you the list right in the tool.
The folder graphical map seems like a nice idea, but as of this howto, doesn’t look like it tells you the name of the file/folder in the map. I’m sure that will be resolved soon.
You can also delete files from within the tool, which is an added plus.
Tested on: Ubuntu Edgy Eft. (Tool may not exist on prior versions)
Check how much disk space is left
You can check how much disk space is left with Disk Usage Analyzer, System Monitor, or Usage.
Check with Disk Usage Analyzer
To check the free disk space and disk capacity using Disk Usage Analyzer:
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Open Disk Usage Analyzer from the Activities overview. The window will display a list of file locations together with the usage and capacity of each.
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Click one of the items in the list to view a detailed summary of the usage for that item. Click the menu button, and then Scan Folder… or Scan Remote Folder… to scan a different location.
The information is displayed according to Folder, Size, Contents and when the data was last Modified. See more details in Disk Usage Analyzer.
Check with System Monitor
To check the free disk space and disk capacity with System Monitor:
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Open the System Monitor application from the Activities overview.
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Select the File Systems tab to view the system’s partitions and disk space usage. The information is displayed according to Total, Free, Available and Used.
Check with Usage
To check the free disk space and disk capacity with Usage:
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Open the Usage application from the Activities overview.
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Select Storage tab to view the system’s total Used and Available disk space, as well as the used by the Operating System and common user’s directories.
Disk space can be freed from user’s directories and its subdirectories by checking the box next to the directory name.
What if the disk is too full?
If the disk is too full you should:
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Delete files that aren’t important or that you won’t use anymore.
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Make backups of the important files that you won’t need for a while and delete them from the hard drive.
