# Quickly find the largest files and folders that are eating up your disk space

# A practical guide to using "du" and sort to find the top 5 largest directories in Linux

# Check disk usage in the current or any specific path

xinit@localhost:~$ # Top 5 largest files/folders in CURRENT directory:

xinit@localhost:~$ du -sh * | sort -rh | head -n 5

5.7G    Downloads

3.8G    Share

2.0G    Projects

1.6G    Pictures

4.4M    Documents

xinit@localhost:~$ # Top 5 largest in a SPECIFIC directory (e.g. /var):

xinit@localhost:~$ du -sh /var/* | sort -rh | head -n 5

1001M   /var/log

369M    /var/lib

91M     /var/cache

5.6M    /var/backups

60K     /var/tmp

# Command breakdown:

# du -sh *    ->   Shows disk usage for each item

# sort -rh    ->   Sorts results by size (largest first)

# head -n 5   ->   Shows the top 5