Space Hogs

Discover surprisingly large directories from the command line.

~/projects/npm $ space-hogs
151 MB ~/projects/npm
Largest children directories, each larger than 9 MB
├──  31 MB [▒   ] /.git
├──   9 MB [▒   ] /node_modules/npm-registry-couchapp/node_modules
├──  12 MB [▒   ] /node_modules/tap/node_modules/nyc/node_modules
├──  20 MB [▒   ] /node_modules/standard/node_modules/standard-engine/node_modules/eslint/node_modules
├──  17 MB [▒   ] /node_modules/standard/node_modules/standard-format/node_modules/esformatter-jsx/node_modules/babel-core/node_modules
└──  62 MB [▒▒  ] (everything else)
    151 MB Total

~/projects/npm $ space-hogs node_modules 5 --depth=0
114 MB ~/projects/npm/node_modules
Largest children directories, each larger than 5 MB
├──   6 MB [▒   ] /node-gyp
├──  11 MB [▒   ] /npm-registry-couchapp
├──  27 MB [▒   ] /tap
├──  56 MB [▒▒  ] /standard
└──  13 MB [▒   ] (everything else)
    114 MB Total

Install

$ npm i -g space-hogs

Usage

$ space-hogs --help

    Usage
      space-hogs [path] [size] [--depth=number]

    Options
      directory        Directory to scan. Defaults to the current directory.
      size             Minimum size in MB. Defaults to 6% of the total MB.
      --depth=number   Number of sub-directories to dive into. 0 = none. Defaults to all.

    Examples

      $ space-hogs
      $ space-hogs node_modules 5 --depth=0
      $ space-hogs 1000

Tips

• I don't recommend using this on the root of your drive, there are better tools for exploring your entire disk.
• There isn't a real API yet, it will always output to the console, but I hope to have a promise-based API.
• Test coverage isn't really there yet.

Contributions

I'm happy to take contributions.

Here's some ideas:

Colors

• Show me what it should look like, or make a PR using chalk.
• Even though all terminals should have a black background, some people use white, and we should be attentive to that when picking colors.

API + Refactoring

• I feel that my recursive promise implementation could be done better with observables/RxJS.
• I think this will make it possible to have a good API.
• If this doesn't make sense it's probably because I don't know enough about observables/RxJS.

Cross-platform (aka Windows support)

• I currently use du for calculating disk usage. This won't work in Windows.
• If you would like to help make it work in Windows let me know and start working on a pull request.

Performance

• I wonder if there are faster ways to get disk usage than du using native code. Ideas?

Test Coverage

• This project uses the AVA test runner, I recommend trying it!
• Help me improve the coverage.

Troubleshooting

• This is meant for projects, not for checking your entire disk, or even all of /usr/.
• Add --debug and to get some debug info that will be helpful for creating tickets.
• Windows is not yet supported
• Versions of node before 4 are not supported.

Inspiration

Super awesome and prolific node module creator Sindre Sorhus has a repo for sharing ideas for new modules. On Feb 10, 2016, I submitted a proposal for space-hogs: cli for discovering surprisingly large directories. There was a lot of interest, but nobody else created it, so I decided to see if I could.

Similar Tools

• WinDirStat - Windows only, GUI only, shows every directory, not just the largest offenders.
• Grand Perspective - Mac only, GUI only, shows every directory, not just the largest offenders.

About the Author

Hi! My name is Dylan Greene. When not overwhelmed with my two young kids I enjoy contributing to the open source community. I'm also a tech lead at Opower.

License

MIT © Dylan Greene