To quickly see which directories are taking up the most space on your Linux system, use this simple command:

du -h --max-depth=1 | sort -h

Explanation:

  • du -h: Displays directory sizes in a human-readable format (KB, MB, GB).
  • --max-depth=1: Limits the output to the top-level directories.
  • sort -h: Sorts the output by size, from smallest to largest. The -h flag is used to sort human-readable numbers, like those produced by du -h.

Example Output:

11G     .
6.5G    ./splunk
4.6G    ./.cache
12K     ./.bearlychilly
0       ./.ssh