Ubuntu – Why does an encrypted folder totally fill the /home/ folder

ecryptfsencryptionhome-directory

When I installed Ubuntu 10.10 on my laptop from the CD, I choose for encrypting my home folder. Just after, I copied a lot of files to ~, but that copying might not have worked.

Since then my computer is running very slow. I restarted my computer enough times to have the system file checks be done during some boots: no change.

As a consequence I analyzed my /home/ folder using Baobab. It indicates my home is full up to 75%. Nearly the half of it is occupied by /home/.ecryptfs/, the other half by /home/grandoxymore/. They both share precisely the same tree structure.

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Is this normal? If no, how should I fix this? If yes, how can I improve my computer performances? And, how can I unencrypt my home folder?

Best Answer

If you have mounted your encrypted home, the unencrypted "view" of the filesystem seems to occupy the same amount of diskspace in addition to the encrypted files, but only the encrypted files are actually occupying disk space (so, this disk space is used only once, not twice).