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I would like to know if it's possible to display the current folder size (in MB or GB) in Nautilus at the status bar.

Here's a screenshot:

img

as you can see, (in this case) I have 7 items, and I have 125.7 GB left. I would like to display:

7 Items, Folder size: 412 MB, Free space: 125.7 GB

Is it possible? If so how?

4
  • 2
    +1 that can be very good information, too bad it's not possible (for now) Feb 7, 2012 at 0:21
  • @rcs20 - care to expand what you mean by "out-of-date and require revision given recent changes" ? As far as I can see, 12.04 behaves the same as 11.10.
    – fossfreedom
    Mar 4, 2012 at 18:31
  • Install baobab - a nice GUI app listing choosen folders within their size.
    – user67398
    May 31, 2012 at 9:16
  • disk usage analyzer will do it
    – user155031
    May 3, 2013 at 3:16

6 Answers 6

16

The reason this information is not in the statusbar is probably because it requires a lot of disk reading to find the disk usage of a directory. Consider opening /. It'll have to recursively traverse the entire filesystem in order to find the disk usage. The ammount of free space on the other hand, is very quick to retrieve since each filesystem keeps track of this.

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+50

Right click the folder in nautilus and select Properties. The Basic tab shows how many items and total size. Not on the bottom but the information is there.

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  • 11
    "ctrl+i" also works for quicker access. (ctrl = command key)
    – v2r
    Mar 2, 2012 at 13:36
6

It is not possible, and you would have to file a bug report requesting this feature.

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  • 8
    Or an extension (if the necessary info is exposed) Feb 7, 2012 at 8:24
4

I don't have answer from within Nautilus, but I do have a solution to the problem I was having. As newcomer to Linux I was looking for an answer to the same question and I'm really surprised that this feature isn't there.

I am running an SSD, but they're not cheap so I've only got 64 GB on my hard drive. I load Ubuntu and within days half the disk is gobbled up. I discover that my home folder is the culprit - but which sub-folders are the problem? Sure, I can expand the whole tree and check the properties of each file individually, but that will take me half the morning.

This link gives some very simple command line instructions that enable you to list all the files whose size lies between the range you specify in the directory you specify - so you can instantly find all the biggies.. But that may not be why you wanted the feature.

Anyway, here's the link http://www.unixtutorial.org/2008/03/find-large-files-and-directories/

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    for the lazy ones: it uses du (estimate file size): du -sh /usr/* | sort -h. May take a good couple of seconds.
    – phil294
    Mar 14, 2016 at 0:16
1

No, this is impossible. You can view size manually by right-clicking a file or folder and choosing "Properties", and the size will be under the tab named "General".

1

Install dconf-tools (sudo apt-get install dconf-tools) Open dconf-editor as a user (don't use sudo)

Find:

org -> gnome -> nautilus -> window-state

and choose for start-with-status-bar.

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  • Sir, I'm unable to find 'start-with-status-bar' option Dec 4, 2019 at 12:25

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