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Disk Cleanup Ubuntu

Introduction​

This guide explains some safe steps to clean up the hard drive on an Ubuntu computer..

Measure Disk Space​

  • To check the available space, execute the command df.
df

In this example, the root partition (/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv) mounted at / is completely full (100% used).

harry@templateunbutu:/var/log$ df
Filesystem                        1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
tmpfs                                812876    1076    811800   1% /run
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv   8408452 8273228         0 100% /
tmpfs                               4064380       0   4064380   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                                  5120       0      5120   0% /run/lock
/dev/sda2                           1768056  268396   1391528  17% /boot
tmpfs                                812876       4    812872   1% /run/user/1000

Steps​

Step 1. - Remove apt cache​

  • Remove old cached package downloads.
sudo apt clean

Step 2. - Remove orphaned/unused packages​

  • Autoremove gets rid of packages no longer needed.
sudo apt autoremove --purge

Step 3. - Clear old log files​

  • Ubuntu logs are stored in /var/log. Rotate logs older than 3 days and then clear the logs.
sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=3d
  • That keeps only the last 3 days of system logs.
  • Remove archived logs in /var/log.
sudo rm -f /var/log/*.gz
sudo rm -f /var/log/*.1
sudo rm -rf /var/log/journal/*

Step 4. - Clear .cache Folder​

  • Clear the entire .cache folder. This is mostly rebuildable stuff like thumbnails, temp downloads, etc.
rm -rf ~/.cache/*

5. - Snap Cache​

  • Snap can grow silently. You can clean it up like this.
sudo du -sh /var/lib/snapd/cache

Step 6. - Check for large files​

  • Check what’s eating up space:
sudo du -ahx / | sort -rh | head -n 20

Summary​

  • Confirm that the clean up has been successful by issuing the df command.

  • In this example, we can see that the root partition (/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv), mount at / used space has decreased from 100% to 80%.

harry@templateunbutu:/var/log$ df
Filesystem                        1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
tmpfs                                812876    1096    811780   1% /run
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv   8408452 6331344   1628392  80% /
tmpfs                               4064380       0   4064380   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                                  5120       0      5120   0% /run/lock
/dev/sda2                           1768056  250660   1409264  16% /boot
tmpfs                                812876       4    812872   1% /run/user/1000
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