How to find large files in Linux

Chris Worner · Oct 2, 2016

Are there any commands that allow me find top 10 large files in my VPS Linux?
I tried some ways but not successfully

sh-admin · Oct 2, 2016

enter the directory where you need to find the large files and use the below command

du -sh *

and it will give you the list of the files with its sizes ... this command takes time to execute as it counts the files size so be patient.

LJSHost · Oct 2, 2016

As sh-admin said du is very flexible command.
You can also use:

find / -size +50M -exec ls -lh {} \; | awk '{print $5" - "$9}'

This will scan the the file system from / for any files larger than 50MB

fwh · Oct 2, 2016

Here's mine

du -a /var | sort -n -r | head -n 10

This command will display top 10 biggest files on whole your Linux.

UWH-David · Oct 3, 2016

Although not directly related, you may also find the following useful as well in terms of hunting down usage based on inode/file count. Very useful when hunting down email accounts with ridiculously large file counts.

Code:

find / -xdev -printf '%h\n' | sort | uniq -c | sort -k 1 -n

BlaZeX · Apr 30, 2017

cd /
for i in *; do echo -e "$(find $i | wc -l)\t$i"; done | sort -n

I use this. Seems to be faster.

SolaDrive · May 3, 2017

I'd suggest using this: du -sh * | sort -h

It will show you the biggest files in the directory in order of biggest to smallest.

Dopani · May 3, 2017

SolaDrive said:
I'd suggest using this: du -sh * | sort -h

It will show you the biggest files in the directory in order of biggest to smallest.

Nice command @SolaDrive

What parameter can I show from smallest to biggest files?

BlaZeX said:
Code:

cd / for i in *; do echo -e "$(find $i | wc -l)\t$i"; done | sort -n

I use this. Seems to be faster.

What does it mean in your command?

AlbaHost · May 3, 2017

Dopani said:
Nice command @SolaDrive

What parameter can I show from smallest to biggest files?

What does it mean in your command?

From biggest to smallest:

for X in $(du -s * | sort -nr | cut -f 2); do du -hs $X ; done

optimalgeek · May 3, 2017

You may use the below command.

du -a /var | sort -n -r | head -n 10

Replace 10 for the number of files you want to display.

racksandcloud · May 18, 2017

Hello,

Syntax for RedHat / CentOS / Fedora Linux

find {/path/to/directory/} -type f -size +{size-in-kb}k -exec ls -lh {} \; | awk '{ print $9 ": " $5 }'

Search or find big files Linux (50MB) in current directory, enter:
$ find . -type f -size +50000k -exec ls -lh {} \; | awk '{ print $9 ": " $5 }'

Search in my /var/log directory:
# find /var/log -type f -size +100000k -exec ls -lh {} \; | awk '{ print $9 ": " $5 }'
Syntax for Debian / Ubuntu Linux

find {/path/to/directory} -type f -size +{file-size-in-kb}k -exec ls -lh {} \; | awk '{ print $8 ": " $5 }'

Search in current directory:
$ find . -type f -size +10000k -exec ls -lh {} \; | awk '{ print $8 ": " $5 }'

You can also use ls command:
$ ls -lS
$ ls -lS | less
$ ls -lS | head +10

24x7serverman · Oct 27, 2017

If you will fire the below command then the linux server will display the file with it's size -
du -sch *

If you would like to know the file size of hidden files to then please fire below command -
du -hs .[!.]*

Sort the file size in ascending order -
$ ls -S
$ ls -S -l

OR
find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 du -h | sort -rh

Denis // trabia · Oct 30, 2017

find / -xdev -type f -size +100M -exec du -sh {} ';' | sort -rh | head -n10

You can adjust the -size option to the file size optimal for you system, for example if you get too less results, you should specify a smaller file size.

karimbuzdar · Oct 1, 2024

Chris Worner said:
Are there any commands that allow me find top 10 large files in my VPS Linux?
I tried some ways but not successfully

Did you try?
sudo find / -type f -exec du -h {} + | sort -rh | head -n 10

How to find large files in Linux

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