Method-1 :
There is no specific command available in Linux to do this, hence we are using more than one command (all together) to get this done.
# find / -type f -print0 | xargs -0 du -h | sort -rh | head -n 10
1.4G /swapfile
1.1G /home/magi/ubuntu-17.04-desktop-amd64.iso
564M /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqTFU0XzkzUlJUZzA
378M /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqeldzUmhPeC03Zm8
377M /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqRGd4V0VrOXM4YVU
100M /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libOxideQtCore.so.0
93M /usr/lib/firefox/libxul.so
84M /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3604.snap
84M /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3440.snap
84M /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3247.snapDetails :find : It’s a command, Search for files in a directory hierarchy./ : Check in the whole system (starting from / directory)-type : File is of typef : Regular file-print0 : Print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a null character| : Control operator that send the output of one program to another program for further processing.xargs : It’s a command, which build and execute command lines from standard input.-0 : Input items are terminated by a null character instead of by whitespacedu -h : It’s a command to calculate disk usage with human readable formatsort : It’s a command, Sort lines of text files-r : Reverse the result of comparisons-h : Print the output with human readable formathead : It’s a command, Output the first part of filesn -10 : Print the first 10 files.
Method-2 :
This is an another way to find or check top 10 largest files in Linux system. Here also, we are putting few commands together to achieve this.
# find / -type f -exec du -Sh {} + | sort -rh | head -n 10
1.4G /swapfile
1.1G /home/magi/ubuntu-17.04-desktop-amd64.iso
564M /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqTFU0XzkzUlJUZzA
378M /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqeldzUmhPeC03Zm8
377M /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqRGd4V0VrOXM4YVU
100M /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libOxideQtCore.so.0
93M /usr/lib/firefox/libxul.so
84M /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3604.snap
84M /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3440.snap
84M /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3247.snapDetails :find : It’s a command, Search for files in a directory hierarchy./ : Check in the whole system (starting from / directory)-type : File is of type
f : Regular file-exec : This variant of the -exec action runs the specified command on the selected filesdu : It’s a command to estimate file space usage.
-S : Do not include size of subdirectories-h : Print sizes in human readable format{} : Summarize disk usage of each FILE, recursively for directories.
| : Control operator that send the output of one program to another program for further processing.sort : It’s a command, Sort lines of text files-r : Reverse the result of comparisons
-h : Compare human readable numbershead : It’s a command, Output the first part of filesn -10 : Print the first 10 files.
Method-3 :
It’s an another method to find or search top 10 largest files in Linux system.
# find / -type f -print0 | xargs -0 du | sort -n | tail -10 | cut -f2 | xargs -I{} du -sh {}
84M /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3247.snap
84M /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3440.snap
84M /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3604.snap
93M /usr/lib/firefox/libxul.so
100M /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libOxideQtCore.so.0
377M /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqRGd4V0VrOXM4YVU
378M /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqeldzUmhPeC03Zm8
564M /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqTFU0XzkzUlJUZzA
1.1G /home/magi/ubuntu-17.04-desktop-amd64.iso
1.4G /swapfileDetails :find : It’s a command, Search for files in a directory hierarchy./ : Check in the whole system (starting from / directory)-type : File is of type
f : Regular file-print0 : Print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a null character| : Control operator that send the output of one program to another program for further processing.
xargs : It’s a command, which build and execute command lines from standard input.-0 : Input items are terminated by a null character instead of by whitespacedu : It’s a command to estimate file space usage.
sort : It’s a command, Sort lines of text files-n : Compare according to string numerical valuetail -10 : It’s a command, output the last part of files (last 10 files)
cut : It’s a command, remove sections from each line of files-f2 : Select only these fields value.-I{} : Replace occurrences of replace-str in the initial-arguments with names read from standard input.
-s : Display only a total for each argument-h : Print sizes in human readable format{} : Summarize disk usage of each FILE, recursively for directories.
Method-4 :
It’s an another method to find or search top 10 largest files in Linux system.
# find / -type f -ls | sort -k 7 -r -n | head -10 | column -t | awk '{print $7,$11}'
1494845440 /swapfile
1085984380 /home/magi/ubuntu-17.04-desktop-amd64.iso
591003648 /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqTFU0XzkzUlJUZzA
395770383 /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqeldzUmhPeC03Zm8
394891761 /home/magi/.gdfuse/magi/cache/0B5nso_FPaZFqRGd4V0VrOXM4YVU
103999072 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libOxideQtCore.so.0
97356256 /usr/lib/firefox/libxul.so
87896064 /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3604.snap
87793664 /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3440.snap
87089152 /var/lib/snapd/snaps/core_3247.snapDetails :find : It’s a command, Search for files in a directory hierarchy./ : Check in the whole system (starting from / directory)-type : File is of type
f : Regular file-ls : List current file in ls -dils format on standard output.| : Control operator that send the output of one program to another program for further processing.
sort : It’s a command, Sort lines of text files-k : start a key at POS1-r : Reverse the result of comparisons
-n : Compare according to string numerical valuehead : It’s a command, Output the first part of files-10 : Print the first 10 files.
column : It’s a command, formats its input into multiple columns.-t : Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table.awk : It’s a command, Pattern scanning and processing language'{print $7,$11}' : Print only mentioned column.
