How to find large files and directories in Linux

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Question:

How to  find the largest top 20 files and directories in my Linux ?

Answer :

To  find   big  files  and  directories   you have  to use  3  commands is  1  line   du  sort  and  head 

• du : Estimate file space usage
• sort : Sort lines of text files or given input data
• head : Output the first part of files i.e. to display first 10 largest file

Let  give  on example  . 

find  largets 20 files  or  directories  . i  prefere root  acces  to execute  the  commands

#du -a /var | sort -n -r | head -n 20

output

[root@localhost ~]# du -a /etc  | sort -n -r | head -20
125520  /etc
66376   /etc/gconf
44932   /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults
43084   /etc/selinux
43052   /etc/selinux/targeted
40772   /etc/selinux/targeted/modules
40740   /etc/selinux/targeted/modules/active
21388   /etc/gconf/schemas
18928   /etc/selinux/targeted/modules/active/base.linked
14716   /etc/selinux/targeted/modules/active/base.pp
4796    /etc/selinux/targeted/modules/active/modules
2972    /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/%gconf-tree.xml
2768    /etc/rc.d
1884    /etc/selinux/targeted/policy
1876    /etc/selinux/targeted/policy/policy.21
1876    /etc/selinux/targeted/modules/active/policy.kern
1836    /etc/gconf/schemas/gnome-terminal.schemas
1328    /etc/gconf/schemas/apps_nautilus_preferences.schemas
1284    /etc/firmware
1276    /etc/firmware/microcode.dat
[root@localhost ~]#

Explain the  options :

• -a : Include all files, not just directories (du command)
• -h : Human readable format
• -n : Numeric sort (sort command)
• -r : Reverse the result of comparisons (sort command)
• -n 20 : Display 20 largest file

There  is some Other  scirpts  via  Ineternet   that   doing  The  same  Jobs  Like  :

find / -type d -size +1G  (to   fine Directories more  then 1  GB)

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