· Disk Space · 1 min read

dua

dua i ~/Downloads

dua (-> Disk Usage Analyzer) is a tool to conveniently learn about the usage of disk space of a given directory. It's parallel by default and will max out your SSD, providing relevant information as fast as possible. Optionally delete superfluous data, and do so more quickly than rm.

With limited hard drive space one often wants to take stock of what currently is taking up all the space and remove the things you no longer want. dua is great in that it allows you easily see what is taking up space in a filesystem directory and then create a temporary list of things to remove them. It's the first thing I reach for when disk space becomes a problem.

ncdu is a close and more well-known second here, but dua is definitely more forgiving in the deletion process and allows you to build a list before committing to deletion.