-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- find -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the key utility to find files is "find" http://alvinalexander.com/unix/edu/examples/find.shtml -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Search for files with today's listings -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- $ gls -al --time-style=+%D | grep `date +%D` <-1-> <- 2 -> <- 3 -> #1 must use GNU ls #2 cast date in a specific style (MM/DD/YY) #3 search for date in the same style (this is the clever part) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- find largest file -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- $ ls -lSrh #l long listing #S sort files by size #r list in increasing order of size #h file size in "human readable" units -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- find largest directories (by size) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- $ du -kx dirname #lists files with length in blocks $ du -kx papers papers/09dav .. 2735104 papers #notice the last entry However, when you search the entire directory as in $ du -kx the last few entries are 10292 ./papers/VLA-RT 2735104 ./papers So you want to exclude all file names with two slashes ("/.../") $ du -kx | grep -v "/.+/" #lists the size of each directory -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------