go DiskUsage()

Pretty fast disk usage analyzer written in Go.

Gdu is intended primarily for SSD disks where it can fully utilize parallel processing. However HDDs work as well, but the performance gain is not so huge.

Installation

Head for the releases and download binary for your system.

Using curl:

curl -L https://github.com/dundee/gdu/releases/latest/download/gdu_linux_amd64.tgz | tar xz
chmod +x gdu_linux_amd64
mv gdu_linux_amd64 /usr/bin/gdu

Arch Linux:

yay -S gdu

Debian:

apt install gdu

Ubuntu

add-apt-repository ppa:daniel-milde/gdu
apt-get update
apt-get install gdu

NixOS:

nix-env -iA nixos.gdu

Homebrew:

brew install -f gdu
brew link --overwrite gdu  # if you have coreutils installed as well

Snap:

snap install gdu-disk-usage-analyzer
snap connect gdu-disk-usage-analyzer:mount-observe :mount-observe
snap connect gdu-disk-usage-analyzer:system-backup :system-backup
snap alias gdu-disk-usage-analyzer.gdu gdu

Binenv

binenv install gdu

Go:

go install github.com/dundee/gdu/v5/cmd/gdu@latest

Usage

  gdu [flags] [directory_to_scan]

Flags:
  -h, --help                          help for gdu
  -i, --ignore-dirs strings           Absolute paths to ignore (separated by comma) (default [/proc,/dev,/sys,/run])
  -I, --ignore-dirs-pattern strings   Absolute path patterns to ignore (separated by comma)
  -X, --ignore-from string            Read absolute path patterns to ignore from file
  -f, --input-file string             Import analysis from JSON file
  -l, --log-file string               Path to a logfile (default "/dev/null")
  -m, --max-cores int                 Set max cores that GDU will use. 8 cores available (default 8)
  -c, --no-color                      Do not use colorized output
  -x, --no-cross                      Do not cross filesystem boundaries
  -H, --no-hidden                     Ignore hidden directories (beginning with dot)
  -p, --no-progress                   Do not show progress in non-interactive mode
  -n, --non-interactive               Do not run in interactive mode
  -o, --output-file string            Export all info into file as JSON
  -a, --show-apparent-size            Show apparent size
  -d, --show-disks                    Show all mounted disks
  -s, --summarize                     Show only a total in non-interactive mode
  -v, --version                       Print version

Examples

gdu                                   # analyze current dir
gdu -a                                # show apparent size instead of disk usage
gdu <some_dir_to_analyze>             # analyze given dir
gdu -d                                # show all mounted disks
gdu -l ./gdu.log <some_dir>           # write errors to log file
gdu -i /sys,/proc /                   # ignore some paths
gdu -I '.*[abc]+'                     # ignore paths by regular pattern
gdu -X ignore_file /                  # ignore paths by regular patterns from file
gdu -c /                              # use only white/gray/black colors

gdu -n /                              # only print stats, do not start interactive mode
gdu -np /                             # do not show progress, useful when using its output in a script
gdu -nps /some/dir                    # show only total usage for given dir
gdu / > file                          # write stats to file, do not start interactive mode

gdu -o- / | gzip -c >report.json.gz   # write all info to JSON file for later analysis
zcat report.json.gz | gdu -f-         # read analysis from file

Modes

Gdu has three modes: interactive (default), non-interactive and export.

Non-interactive mode is started automtically when TTY is not detected (using go-isatty), for example if the output is being piped to a file, or it can be started explicitly by using a flag.

Export mode (flag -o) outputs all usage data as JSON, which can be later opened using the -f flag.

Hard links are counted only once.

File flags

Files and directories may be prefixed by a one-character flag with following meaning:

• ! An error occurred while reading this directory.

• . An error occurred while reading a subdirectory, size may be not correct.

• @ File is symlink or socket.

• H Same file was already counted (hard link).

• e Directory is empty.

Running tests

make test

Benchmarks

Benchmarks were performed on 50G directory (100k directories, 400k files) on 500 GB SSD using hyperfine. See benchmark target in Makefile for more info.

Cold cache

Filesystem cache was cleared using sync; echo 3 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches.

Command	Mean [s]	Min [s]	Max [s]	Relative
gdu -npc ~	5.377 ± 0.479	5.132	6.719	1.07 ± 0.10
dua ~	6.431 ± 0.015	6.417	6.465	1.28 ± 0.01
duc index ~	30.432 ± 2.965	29.321	38.866	6.07 ± 0.59
ncdu -0 -o /dev/null ~	29.435 ± 0.145	29.188	29.711	5.87 ± 0.06
diskus ~	5.013 ± 0.042	4.948	5.087	1.00
du -hs ~	29.445 ± 3.223	28.337	38.616	5.87 ± 0.64
dust -d0 ~	6.673 ± 0.483	6.337	7.788	1.33 ± 0.10

Warm cache

Command	Mean [ms]	Min [ms]	Max [ms]	Relative
gdu -npc ~	710.8 ± 11.0	692.8	730.7	1.67 ± 0.10
dua ~	532.0 ± 16.5	496.6	551.2	1.25 ± 0.08
duc index ~	1706.6 ± 23.2	1668.1	1729.3	4.01 ± 0.23
ncdu -0 -o /dev/null ~	2399.4 ± 12.5	2388.5	2425.2	5.64 ± 0.32
diskus ~	425.1 ± 23.7	393.3	469.7	1.00
du -hs ~	1397.0 ± 19.6	1378.2	1435.5	3.29 ± 0.19
dust -d0 ~	663.3 ± 9.8	645.0	679.5	1.56 ± 0.09

Alternatives

• ncdu - NCurses based tool written in pure C
• godu - Analyzer with carousel like user interface
• dua - Tool written in Rust with interface similar to gdu (and ncdu)
• diskus - Very simple but very fast tool written in Rust
• duc - Collection of tools with many possibilities for inspecting and visualising disk usage
• dust - Tool written in Rust showing tree like structures of disk usage