In prior versions, I would open Nautilus and check the statusbar, which would tell me how much free space there is. Now, the statusbar isn't shown by default. I know you can enable it from the View menu, but 99% of users won't do that (and I'd rather not do that, if possible). So, is there some new recommended way to keep tabs on hard drive usage? Or is there maybe some other method that I should have been using in the past but never noticed?
Ubuntu – Nautilus statusbar visibilty – Quickly check free space
disk-usagenautilususability
Related Solutions
With newer versions of Nautilus (2.31.5 and later) renaming .desktop files actually changes the filename, not the Name field of the file itself.
Nautilus will show the full filename (with the .desktop extension), if the .desktop file is not executable.
For example,
if Firefox.desktop is executable:
Now to see the actual filename, make Firefox.desktop un-executable. Right click -> Properties -> Permissions -> Uncheck Allow executing file as a program.
Now Nautilus will show the full file name:
There seems to be a bug with renaming un-executable
.desktopfiles in Nautilus.
If you don't erase the.desktopextension, the file will
have a double-extension (i.eFirefox.desktop.desktop).
You could investigate the problem. Yes, I know it's a big file, but by throwing away data and letting the computer do the work, one could:
cat .xsession-errors* | \
egrep -v '^$' | \
sed -e 's/[0-9][0-9]\+/#NUM#/g' | \
sort | \
uniq -c | \
sort -rn | \
tee counts.out | \
less -XMersj3
Some messages (on my system without the problem) like:
38 /usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/widgets/exhibits.py:#NUM#: Warning: Source ID #NUM# was not found when attempting to remove it
38 GLib.source_remove(self._timeout)
36 (nautilus:#NUM#): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_window_get_origin: assertion 'GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed
happen more often (38, 38, 36 times) than others, and therefore deserve more investigation.
Others:
1 compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: ccp
1 compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: animation
Another thing to do is to look for deleted, but still open files:
sudo lsof / | egrep 'PID|(deleted)'
Look for large SIZE/OFF values.
And look for large open files:
sudo lsof / | \
awk '{if($7 > 1048576) print $7/1048576 "MB" " " $9 }' | \
sort -n -u
Best Answer
There are lots of ways to find out how much hard disk space is available.
Disk Usage Analyzer
Terminal commands
System Monitor
Conky
or a number of other utilities.
But I don't think any of them are going to be as simple as checking the status bar in a Nautilus window.