We can use the following commands to find the largest files and directories in #Linux.
Find Largest Files and Directories under a specific directory and subdirectory in Linux
# du -ah /home | sort -n -r | head -n 5
Find Largest Files and Directories under the current working directory and subdirectory.
# du -ah | sort -n -r | head -n 5
Find Largest Directories or Files in the current working directory
# du -sh * | sort -rh | head -5
Find Largest Directories or Files in / directory
# du -ahx / | sort -rh | head -5
We use the following commands in our examples.
#du command : It estimates file space usage
sort command : Sort lines of text files or given input data
head command : Output the first part of files i.e. to display first 10 largest file
We use the following options in our examples.
#du command -h option : display file sizes in human-readable format, in Kilobytes, Megabytes and Gigabytes.
du command -s option : Show total for each argument.
du command -x option : Skip directories. (if on different file systems)
sort command -r option : Reverse the result of comparisons.
sort command -h option : Compare the numbers.
head command -10 OR -n 10 option : Displays the first 10 lines of the output.
