diskbroom

Find and reclaim the gigabytes of regenerable build junk rotting across all your projects — safely, on any OS.

Every developer's disk is quietly bleeding space to node_modules, .venv, target/, .gradle, and a dozen build caches — all of it perfectly regenerable with a single command. diskbroom walks your projects, adds it all up, and shows you exactly where the space went.

$ npx diskbroom ~/code

     SIZE   ECOSYSTEM     CONFIDENCE  PATH
   1.8 GB   JavaScript    high        acme-dashboard/node_modules
   940 MB   Rust          high        parser/target
   612 MB   JavaScript    high        old-blog/node_modules
   210 MB   Python        high        ml-notebook/.venv
    88 MB   Gradle        high        android-app/.gradle
    41 MB   Build output  medium      docs-site/dist

  by ecosystem:  JavaScript 3.4 GB  ·  Rust 940 MB  ·  Python 210 MB  ·  Gradle 88 MB

  3.6 GB reclaimable across 5 high-confidence folders
  41 MB more in 1 medium-confidence folder — review before removing

  scanned in 2.3s · diskbroom only reports today; it never deletes anything.

Why another cleaner?

Most tools only know about node_modules and lean Unix-only. diskbroom is:

• Cross-ecosystem — JavaScript, Python, Rust, Java/Gradle, .NET, Terraform, and more in one pass.
• First-class on Windows — built and tested on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
• Safe by design — never follows symlinks, never descends into system folders, and (for now) never deletes anything. It only reports.
• Precise — ambiguous names like target/, dist/, and bin/ are only flagged when a real project marker (e.g. Cargo.toml, package.json, a .csproj) sits next to them, so your hand-written build/ folder is left alone.
• Zero runtime dependencies — small, fast, and nothing sketchy in your node_modules (ironic, we know).

Install

Run it once without installing:

npx diskbroom

Or install globally:

npm install -g diskbroom

Usage

diskbroom [path] [options]

| Option | Description | | --- | --- | | path | Directory to scan (default: current directory) | | --top <n> | Show only the n largest findings | | --depth <n> | Limit how deep to descend | | --json | Output machine-readable JSON | | -h, --help | Show help | | -v, --version | Show version |

Examples

diskbroom                     # scan the current folder
diskbroom ~/code --top 20     # 20 biggest artifacts under ~/code
diskbroom . --json            # JSON output for scripts or CI

What it detects

| Ecosystem | Folders | | --- | --- | | JavaScript | node_modules, .next, .nuxt, .svelte-kit, .turbo, .parcel-cache, .angular, coverage | | Python | .venv, venv, __pycache__, .mypy_cache, .pytest_cache, .ruff_cache, .tox | | Rust | target (next to a Cargo.toml) | | Java / Gradle | .gradle | | .NET | bin, obj (next to a project/solution file) | | Build output | dist, build (next to a project manifest) | | Terraform | .terraform |

Missing something? Open an issue — the catalogue is easy to extend in src/patterns.ts.

Confidence levels

• high — the folder is unambiguous and always regenerable. Counted in the headline total.
• medium — the folder name could theoretically hold source, so diskbroom only flags it when a project marker is present, and reports it separately for you to review.

Roadmap

• [ ] Interactive mode — select folders and delete them (dry-run by default, with confirmation)
• [ ] --older-than 30d to target only stale artifacts
• [ ] Config file for custom rules and ignore paths
• [ ] Package-manager cache cleanup (npm, pip, cargo, Gradle global caches)

Contributing

Issues and PRs are very welcome — especially new ecosystem rules. See src/patterns.ts for how detection works.

git clone https://github.com/EfeHasNoLuck/diskbroom
cd diskbroom
npm install
npm test
npm run build
node dist/cli.js --help

License

MIT © Efe Saygılı