Last Updated on June 15, 2021
This article has been replaced by Essential Utilities: Reclaiming Disk Space
A disk usage analyzer is a utility which helps users to visualize the disk space being used by each folder and files on a hard disk or other storage media. This type of application often generates a graphical chart to help the visualization process.
Disk usage analyzers are popular with system administrators as one of their essential tools to prevent important directories and partitions from running out of space. Having a hard disk with insufficient free space can often have a detrimental effect on the system’s performance. It can even stop users from logging on to the system, or, in extreme circumstances, cause the system to hang.
However, disk usage analyzers are not just useful tools for system administrators. Whilst modern hard disks are terabytes in size, there are many folk who seem to forever run out of hard drive space. Often the culprit is a large video and/or audio collection, bloated software applications, or games. Sometimes the hard disk is also full of data that that users have no particular interest in. For example, left unchecked, log files and package archives can consume large chunks of hard disk space.
File systems can have millions of files. Keeping track of them can be an almost impossible task without some utility. Here steps in the disk usage analyzer. Linux has a good selection of this type of software for rooting out space eaters.
To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of the 7 of the most useful disk usage analyzers. Hopefully, there will be something of interest here for anyone who wants to recapture their disk space.
Now, let’s explore the 7 disk usage analyzers at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, screenshots, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.
| Disk Usage Analyzers | |
|---|---|
| Disk Usage Analyser | Component part of the gnome-utils package |
| agedu | Utility for tracking down wasted disk space |
| JDiskReport | Java based disk drive analyzer |
| Filelight | Creates an interactive map to visualise disk usage |
| du | Venerable utility which displays disk usage statistics |
| gt5 | Shell program to display visual disk usage with navigation |
| ncdu | ncurses disk usage viewer |
 Read our complete collection of recommended free and open source software. Our curated compilation covers all categories of software. The software collection forms part of our series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. There are hundreds of in-depth reviews, open source alternatives to proprietary software from large corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. There are also fun things to try, hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. |