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I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and I've noticed that my hard disk space is steadily going down. I've been checking it about once a week, and I've noticed a couple of gigs go down per check. I'm not installing anything, so I'm wondering as to why it keeps going down.

I've noticed an earlier post about the xsession file, and have run that command > ~/.xsession-errors and > ~/.xsession-errors.old. This didn't do much, if anything, to lower space. I thought that google chrome might be the culprit, because I have to launch it in the terminal, and I often get errors from it in the terminal.

Anyway, I was wondering as to what might be causing this, and if there was any command/program I could use to track or otherwise find out what's using my disk space up. I only have an 80 Gig hard disk, and 45 gigs are being used right now. So, any help would be appreciated!

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    Check /var/log. There could be many huge log files there. With the current info you have provided, it would be very difficult to pinpoint the problem.
    – Registered User
    Jan 26, 2015 at 14:50

1 Answer 1

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To see what is using your disk space, you could use the Disk Usage Analyzer tool "baobab".

If not installed by default, install via the Software Centre, or from a terminal with

sudo apt-get install baobab

This program works better if run as root, because there are certain files not visible to normal users, so run it with

pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY baobab

This should show you what is using up your disk space.

The command df -h will also give you a rough indication.

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  • Running pkexec baobab results in an error; error: EDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set in the environment. Edit: hit "Enter" key expecting a formatting response, instead it saved the comment...
    – Trey White
    Jan 26, 2015 at 15:00
  • Oops, sorry. Try pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY baobob
    – Carl H
    Jan 26, 2015 at 15:23
  • small typo; at the end, 'baobab' not 'baobob'. But, it worked. Thanks! So, it turns out that I moved a couple of (large) files off of a laptop about a week ago, and that's where all my space went... I really need to get an external HDD for this stuff. Anyway, I think that solved my problem, Thanks!
    – Trey White
    Jan 26, 2015 at 16:27
  • Glad to help. I've edited my answer with the corrections in the comments.
    – Carl H
    Jan 26, 2015 at 18:04

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