Ubuntu
util-linux package

How tom check free disk space in ubuntu?

Asked by lfa

In windows 'My Computer' will give me a list of, and tell me how much space is left on, my disks.
Is there an equivalent for Ubuntu ?

Nautilis > Computer lists my windows hard drive, floppy, cdrom and filesystem (no idea what that is) but not my linux hard drive. And free space for none of those.

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Artem Popov
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Best Artem Popov (artfwo) said : 		#1

Hi!

Actually, Nautilus does not show the "hard drive" as it is, but its volumes. The "filesystem" item is your primary drive (like C: in windows).

If you want to check how much free space is left, right-click on any folder inside your filesystem or Home folder and select "Properties". You will see how much free space is left around this particular folder in the Properties dialog (it all depends on how you've partitioned your disk).

Unfortunately, Nautilus 2.18 shipped with Ubuntu 7.04 has limited freespace displaying capabilities, but Nautilus 2.20, that will be shipped in Ubuntu 7.10, coming this month shows nice graphical pie-charts with occupied/free space :)

Hope this helps :)

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Bhavani Shankar (bhavi) said : 		#2

hello Lfa...,
Unlike Windows, finding available disk space, from the command prompt, is much easier in Ubuntu using the df command when connected locally or remote via an SSH session.

DF command reports how much free disk space is available for each mount you have. When executing DF, I like to use the -h option, which returns the output in a more readable format: Ex: on my old system:

bhavi@bhavi-desktop:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 7.5G 2.1G 5.1G 30% /
varrun 252M 108K 252M 1% /var/run
varlock 252M 0 252M 0% /var/lock
udev 252M 68K 252M 1% /dev
devshm 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm
lrm 252M 33M 219M 14% /lib/modules/2.6.20-15-generic/volat

DF can also report free disk space for individual directories by entering the following command at the prompt:

ds -h /nameofdirectory

Using df at the command prompt is most usefull when checking disk space on remote computers.

To view more available options with df, enter df –help at the command prompt.

Note:To start command prompt open up a terminal..
Application \ Accessories \ Terminal from the panel in Gnome.

K Menu \ Utilities \ Terminal Window from the panel in Kubuntu

Secondly, If you are looking for GUI version:
A nice application you might want to look into is FileLight.

Some screenshots:
http://www.methylblue.com/filelight/images/

If you don't know how to install it, read this:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installingsoftware

hope this helps,

br,

Bhavani Shankar.

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lfa (list-lfa) said : 		#3

Thanks Артём Попов, that solved my question.

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lfa (list-lfa) said : 		#4

Another answer :
It also seems that Nautilus, while browsing through a drives' folders, displays the free space of that drive at the bottom left of the window.

That's awesome. For me that is much easier and friendlier than windows.