ncdu.1

.\" SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Yoran Heling <projects@yorhel.nl>
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
.Dd January 21, 2024
.Dt NCDU 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm ncdu
.Nd NCurses Disk Usage
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl f Ar file
.Op Fl o Ar file
.Op Fl e , \-extended , \-no\-extended
.Op Fl \-ignore\-config
.Op Fl x , \-one\-file\-system , \-cross\-file\-system
.Op Fl \-exclude Ar pattern
.Op Fl X , \-exclude\-from Ar file
.Op Fl \-include\-caches , \-exclude\-caches
.Op Fl L , \-follow\-symlinks , \-no\-follow\-symlinks
.Op Fl \-include\-kernfs , \-exclude\-kernfs
.Op Fl \-exclude\-firmlinks, \-follow\-firmlinks
.Op Fl 0 , 1 , 2
.Op Fl q , \-slow\-ui\-updates , \-fast\-ui\-updates
.Op Fl \-enable\-shell , \-disable\-shell
.Op Fl \-enable\-delete , \-disable\-delete
.Op Fl \-enable\-refresh , \-disable\-refresh
.Op Fl r
.Op Fl \-si , \-no\-si
.Op Fl \-disk\-usage , \-apparent\-size
.Op Fl \-show\-hidden , \-hide\-hidden
.Op Fl \-show\-itemcount , \-hide\-itemcount
.Op Fl \-show\-mtime , \-hide\-mtime
.Op Fl \-show\-graph , \-hide\-graph
.Op Fl \-show\-percent , \-hide\-percent
.Op Fl \-sort Ar column
.Op Fl \-enable\-natsort , \-disable\-natsort
.Op Fl \-group\-directories\-first , \-no\-group\-directories\-first
.Op Fl \-confirm\-quit , \-no\-confirm\-quit
.Op Fl \-confirm\-delete , \-no\-confirm\-delete
.Op Fl \-color Ar off | dark | dark-bg
.Op Ar path
.Nm
.Op Fl h , \-help
.Nm
.Op Fl v , V , \-version
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
(NCurses Disk Usage) is an interactive curses-based version of the well-known
.Xr du 1 ,
and provides a fast way to see what directories are using your disk space.
.Sh OPTIONS
.Ss Mode Selection
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl h , \-help
Print a short help message and quit.
.It Fl v , V , \-version
Print version and quit.
.It Fl f Ar file
Load the given file, which has earlier been created with the
.Fl o
flag.
If
.Ar file
is equivalent to '\-', the file is read from standard input.
.Pp
For the sake of preventing a screw-up, the current version of
.Nm
will assume that the directory information in the imported file does not
represent the filesystem on which the file is being imported.
That is, the refresh, file deletion and shell spawning options in the browser
will be disabled.
.It Ar dir
Scan the given directory.
.It Fl o Ar file
Export all necessary information to
.Ar file
instead of opening the browser interface.
If
.Ar file
is '\-', the data is written to standard output.
See the examples section below for some handy use cases.
.Pp
Be warned that the exported data may grow quite large when exporting a
directory with many files.
10.000 files will get you an export in the order of 600 to 700 KiB
uncompressed, or a little over 100 KiB when compressed with gzip.
This scales linearly, so be prepared to handle a few tens of megabytes when
dealing with millions of files.
.It Fl e , \-extended , \-no\-extended
Enable/disable extended information mode.
This will, in addition to the usual file information, also read the ownership,
permissions and last modification time for each file.
This will result in higher memory usage (by roughly ~30%) and in a larger
output file when exporting.
.Pp
When using the file export/import function, this flag should be added both when
exporting (to make sure the information is added to the export) and when
importing (to read this extra information in memory).
This flag has no effect when importing a file that has been exported without
the extended information.
.Pp
This enables viewing and sorting by the latest child mtime, or modified time,
using 'm' and 'M', respectively.
.It Fl \-ignore\-config
Do not attempt to load any configuration files.
.El
.Ss Scan Options
These options affect the scanning progress, they have no effect when importing
directory information from a file.
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl x , \-one\-file\-system
Do not cross filesystem boundaries, i.e. only count files and directories on
the same filesystem as the directory being scanned.
.It Fl \-cross\-file\-system
Do cross filesystem boundaries.
This is the default, but can be specified to overrule a previously configured
.Fl x .
.It Fl \-exclude Ar pattern
Exclude files that match
.Ar pattern .
The files are still displayed by default, but are not counted towards the disk
usage statistics.
This argument can be added multiple times to add more patterns.
.It Fl X , \-exclude\-from Ar file
Exclude files that match any pattern in
.Ar file .
Patterns should be separated by a newline.
.It Fl \-include\-caches , \-exclude\-caches
Include (default) or exclude directories containing
.Pa CACHEDIR.TAG .
Excluded cache directories are still displayed, but their contents will not be
scanned or counted towards the disk usage statistics.
.Lk https://bford.info/cachedir/
.It Fl L , \-follow\-symlinks , \-no\-follow\-symlinks
Follow (or not) symlinks and count the size of the file they point to.
This option does not follow symlinks to directories and will cause each
symlinked file to count as a unique file.
This is different from how hard links are handled.
The exact counting behavior of this flag is subject to change in the future.
.It Fl \-include\-kernfs , \-exclude\-kernfs
(Linux only) Include (default) or exclude Linux pseudo filesystems such as
.Pa /proc
(procfs) and
.Pa /sys
(sysfs).
.Pp
The complete list of currently known pseudo filesystems is: binfmt, bpf, cgroup,
cgroup2, debug, devpts, proc, pstore, security, selinux, sys, trace.
.Op Fl \-exclude\-firmlinks, \-follow\-firmlinks
(MacOS only) Exclude or follow firmlinks.
.El
.Ss Interface Options
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl 0
Don't give any feedback while scanning a directory or importing a file, except
when a fatal error occurs.
Ncurses will not be initialized until the scan is complete.
When exporting the data with
.Fl o ,
ncurses will not be initialized at all.
This option is the default when exporting to standard output.
.It Fl 1
Similar to
.Fl 0 ,
but does give feedback on the scanning progress with a single line of output.
This option is the default when exporting to a file.
.Pp
In some cases, the ncurses browser interface which you'll see after the
scan/import is complete may look garbled when using this option.
If you're not exporting to a file,
.Fl 2
is usually a better choice.
.It Fl 2
Show a full-screen ncurses interface while scanning a directory or importing
a file.
This is the only interface that provides feedback on any non-fatal errors while
scanning.
.It Fl q , \-slow\-ui\-updates , \-fast\-ui\-updates
Change the UI update interval while scanning or importing.
.Nm
updates the screen 10 times a second by default (with
.Fl \-fast\-ui\-updates
), this can be decreased to once every 2 seconds with
.Fl q
or
.Fl \-slow\-ui\-updates .
This option can be used to save bandwidth over remote connections.
This option has no effect in combination with
.Fl 0 .
.It Fl \-enable\-shell , \-disable\-shell
Enable or disable shell spawning from the file browser.
This feature is enabled by default when scanning a live directory and disabled
when importing from file.
.It Fl \-enable\-delete , \-disable\-delete
Enable or disable the built-in file deletion feature.
This feature is enabled by default when scanning a live directory and disabled
when importing from file.
Explicitly disabling the deletion feature can work as a safeguard to prevent
accidental data loss.
.It Fl \-enable\-refresh , \-disable\-refresh
Enable or disable directory refreshing from the file browser.
This feature is enabled by default when scanning a live directory and disabled
when importing from file.
.It Fl r
Read-only mode.
When given once, this is an alias for
.Fl \-disable\-delete ,
when given twice it will also add
.Fl \-disable\-shell ,
thus ensuring that there is no way to modify the file system from within
.Nm .
.It Fl \-si , \-no\-si
List sizes using base 10 prefixes, that is, powers of 1000 (KB, MB, etc), as
defined in the International System of Units (SI), instead of the usual base 2
prefixes (KiB, MiB, etc).
.It Fl \-disk\-usage , \-apparent\-size
Select whether to display disk usage (default) or apparent sizes.
Can also be toggled in the file browser with the 'a' key.
.It Fl \-show\-hidden , \-hide\-hidden
Show (default) or hide "hidden" and excluded files.
Can also be toggled in the file browser with the 'e' key.
.It Fl \-show\-itemcount , \-hide\-itemcount
Show or hide (default) the item counts column.
Can also be toggled in the file browser with the 'c' key.
.It Fl \-show\-mtime , \-hide\-mtime
Show or hide (default) the last modification time column.
Can also be toggled in the file browser with the 'm' key.
This option is ignored when not in extended mode, see
.Fl e .
.It Fl \-show\-graph , \-hide\-graph
Show (default) or hide the relative size bar column.
Can also be toggled in the file browser with the 'g' key.
.It Fl \-show\-percent , \-hide\-percent
Show (default) or hide the relative size percent column.
Can also be toggled in the file browser with the 'g' key.
.It Fl \-sort Ar column
Change the default column to sort on.
Accepted values are
.Ar disk\-usage
(the default),
.Ar name , apparent\-size , itemcount
or
.Ar mtime .
The latter only makes sense in extended mode, see
.Fl e .
.Pp
The column name can be suffixed with
.Li \-asc
or
.Li \-desc
to change the order to ascending or descending, respectively.
For example,
.Li \-\-sort=name\-desc
to sort by name in descending order.
.It Fl \-enable\-natsort , \-disable\-natsort
Enable (default) or disable natural sort when sorting by file name.
.It Fl \-group\-directories\-first , \-no\-group\-directories\-first
Sort (or not) directories before files.
.It Fl \-confirm\-quit , \-no\-confirm\-quit
Require a confirmation before quitting ncdu.
Can be helpful when you accidentally press 'q' during or after a very long scan.
.It Fl \-confirm\-delete , \-no\-confirm\-delete
Require a confirmation before deleting a file or directory.
Enabled by default, but can be disabled if you're absolutely sure you won't
accidentally press 'd'.
.It Fl \-color Ar off | dark | dark-bg
Set the color scheme.
The following schemes are recognized:
.Ar off
to disable colors,
.Ar dark
for a color scheme intended for dark backgrounds and
.Ar dark\-bg
for a variation of the
.Ar dark
color scheme that also works in terminals with a light background.
.Pp
The default is
.Ar dark\-bg
unless the
.Ev NO_COLOR
environment variable is set.
.El
.Sh CONFIGURATION
.Nm
can be configured by placing command-line options in
.Pa /etc/ncdu.conf
or
.Pa $HOME/.config/ncdu/config .
If both files exist, the system configuration will be loaded before the user
configuration, allowing users to override options set in the system
configuration.
Options given on the command line will override options set in the
configuration files.
The files will not be read at all when
.Fl \-ignore\-config
is given on the command line.
.Pp
The configuration file format is simply one command line option per line.
Lines starting with '#' are ignored.
Example configuration file:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
# Always enable extended mode
\-e

# Disable file deletion
\-\-disable\-delete

# Exclude .git directories
\-\-exclude .git
.Ed
.Sh KEYS
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It ?
Open help + keys + about screen
.It up , down , j , k
Cycle through the items
.It right, enter, l
Open selected directory
.It left, <, h
Go to parent directory
.It n
Order by filename (press again for descending order)
.It s
Order by filesize (press again for descending order)
.It C
Order by number of items (press again for descending order)
.It a
Toggle between showing disk usage and showing apparent size.
.It M
Order by latest child mtime, or modified time (press again for descending
order).
Requires the
.Fl e
flag.
.It d
Delete the selected file or directory.
An error message will be shown when the contents of the directory do not match
or do not exist anymore on the filesystem.
.It t
Toggle dirs before files when sorting.
.It g
Toggle between showing percentage, graph, both, or none.
Percentage is relative to the size of the current directory, graph is relative
to the largest item in the current directory.
.It c
Toggle display of child item counts.
.It m
Toggle display of latest child mtime, or modified time.
Requires the
.Fl e
flag.
.It e
Show/hide 'hidden' or 'excluded' files and directories.
Be aware that even if you can't see the hidden files and directories, they are
still there and they are still included in the directory sizes.
If you suspect that the totals shown at the bottom of the screen are not
correct, make sure you haven't enabled this option.
.It i
Show information about the current selected item.
.It r
Refresh/recalculate the current directory.
.It b
Spawn shell in current directory.
.Pp
.Nm
determines your preferred shell from the
.Ev NCDU_SHELL
or
.Ev SHELL
environment variable (in that order), or calls
.Pa /bin/sh
if neither are set.
This allows you to also configure another command to be run when he 'b' key is
pressed.
For example, to spawn the
.Xr vifm 1
file manager instead of a shell, run
.Nm
as follows:
.Dl NCDU_SHELL=vifm ncdu
The
.Ev NCDU_LEVEL
environment variable is set or incremented before spawning the shell, allowing
you to detect if your shell is running from within
.Nm .
This can be useful to avoid nesting multiple instances, although
.Nm
itself does not (currently) warn about or prevent this situation.
.It q
Quit
.El
.Sh FILE FLAGS
Entries in the browser interface may be prefixed by a one\-character flag.
These flags have the following meaning:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It !
An error occurred while reading this directory.
.It \.
An error occurred while reading a subdirectory, so the indicated size may not
be correct.
.It <
File or directory is excluded from the statistics by using exclude patterns.
.It >
Directory is on another filesystem.
.It ^
Directory is excluded from the statistics due to being a Linux pseudo
filesystem.
.It @
This is neither a file nor a folder (symlink, socket, ...).
.It H
Same file was already counted (hard link).
.It e
Empty directory.
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
To scan and browse the directory you're currently in, all you need is a simple:
.Dl ncdu
If you want to scan a full filesystem, for example your root filesystem, then
you'll want to use
.Fl x :
.Dl ncdu \-x /
.Pp
Since scanning a large directory may take a while, you can scan a directory and
export the results for later viewing:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
ncdu \-1xo\- / | gzip >export.gz
# ...some time later:
zcat export.gz | ncdu \-f\-
.Ed
To export from a cron job, make sure to replace
.Fl 1
with
.Fl 0
to suppress any unnecessary output.
.Pp
You can also export a directory and browse it once scanning is done:
.Dl ncdu \-o\- | tee export.file | ./ncdu \-f\-
The same is possible with gzip compression, but is a bit kludgey:
.Dl ncdu \-o\- | gzip | tee export.gz | gunzip | ./ncdu \-f\-
.Pp
To scan a system remotely, but browse through the files locally:
.Dl ssh \-C user@system ncdu \-o\- / | ./ncdu \-f\-
The
.Fl C
option to ssh enables compression, which will be very useful over slow links.
Remote scanning and local viewing has two major advantages when
compared to running
.Nm
directly on the remote system: You can browse through the scanned directory on
the local system without any network latency, and
.Nm
does not keep the entire directory structure in memory when exporting, so this
won't consume much memory on the remote system.
.Sh BUGS
Directory hard links are not supported.  They are not detected as being hard
links, and will thus get scanned and counted multiple times.
.Pp
Some minor glitches may appear when displaying filenames that contain multibyte
or multicolumn characters.
.Pp
All sizes are internally represented as a signed 64bit integer.
If you have a directory larger than 8 EiB minus one byte, ncdu will clip its
size to 8 EiB minus one byte.
When deleting or refreshing items in a directory with a clipped size, the
resulting sizes will be incorrect.
Item counts are stored in a 32-bit integer without overflow detection.
If you have a directory with more than 2 billion files, quite literally
anything can happen.
.Pp
On macOS 10.15 and later, running ncdu on the root directory without
.Fl \-exclude\-firmlinks
may cause directories to be scanned and counted multiple times.
Firmlink cycles are not detected, so it may also cause
.Nm
to get stuck in an infinite loop and eventually run out of memory.
.Pp
Please report any other bugs you may find at the bug tracker, which can be
found on the web site at
.Lk https://dev.yorhel.nl/ncdu
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr du 1 ,
.Xr tree 1 .
.Pp
.Nm
has a website:
.Lk https://dev.yorhel.nl/ncdu
.Sh AUTHORS
Written by
.An Yorhel Aq Mt projects@yorhel.nl