Linux Commandline Tips #1: Listing the top 20 largest directories from your current directory

Background

<p dir="auto">For a long time, I've been looking for somewhere to post a small number of bash scripts I've borrowed/hacked from various places online, and Steemit seems to be the most natural place to create a repository of short, but useful scripts that I use on a daily basis. <h3>Today's Script <p dir="auto">This script lists the top 20 directories from your current directory downwards, in terms of size. <p dir="auto">Why might this be important? <p dir="auto">Simple answer: if you manage/own a hard drive or web server (I manage a few VPS servers), then you want a <em>quick way to see which directories have become bloated, and delete unwanted files accordingly. <p dir="auto">Webservers can particularly get full, quickly, if there are various backup scripts running. <h3>Here's the Script: <pre><code>du -h . | sort -nr| grep [0-9]M | head -20<br /> <p dir="auto">Normally, I'll put this into a file in /usr/local/bin, as follows: <pre><code>sudo echo "du -h . | sort -nr| grep [0-9]M | head -20" > /usr/local/bin/whatsup<br /> <br /> sudo chmod +x  $! <p dir="auto">The above commands enable me to use this command: <pre><code><strong>whatsup <p dir="auto">...to list those top 20 offending bloated directories. <p dir="auto">So there you go: a simple script to quickly enable me to track down bloated directories, so I can then dive in, and remove backup files that haven't yet been deleted automatically. <p dir="auto">Hope that helps! <p dir="auto">Dez. <h3>Author BIO <p dir="auto">Dez Futak is a serial entrepreneur who helps local businesses & individuals increase their cashflow. For more details, see the Services menu at <a href="https://dezfutak.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" title="This link will take you away from hive.blog" class="external_link">DezFutak.com