How to see visual representation of disk usage?

[reticentrobot]

Ubuntu Version:
24.04 LTS

Desktop Environment (if applicable):
GNOME

Problem Description:
I’d like to see a visual representation of the usage on my mounted disks. I have one for movies and one for TV shows, and they are both getting full so I want an easy way to keep track of how much space is left. Disk Usage Analyzer seems to just dump them together under / - which isn’t much help. Is there anything like in Windows File Explorer where I can easily see this. Right now I’m relying on mounting them as a network drive in Windows to see them.

Screenshots or Error Messages:
Looking for something like this, from Windows 11 File Exploder:

What I’ve Tried:
Files, Disks, Disk Usage Analyzer

[Actionparsnip]

Try
df -h
I think gparted does it too.

[marcelstevano]

Welcome to the community, @reticentrobot It’s great to see your first post here.

The “clean” look of GNOME’s Nautilus can be a bit of a shock when you’re used to the information-rich File Explorer in Windows. Since you want a dedicated visual bar for your media drives without the clutter of Baobab, here are the most effective workarounds currently used:

1. The System Monitor “File Systems” Tab (Closest to Windows)

This is actually the most accurate “GUI” way to see exactly what you showed in your screenshot (a list of drives with usage bars).

• Open System Monitor.
• Switch to the File Systems tab.

It will list every mounted drive (including your movies and TV shows partitions) with a dedicated percentage bar.

2. Using “Duf” for a Visual CLI

Many users on Ask Ubuntu recommend duf because it provides a clean, colored, and organized table that looks much better than the standard df command.

Install: sudo apt install duf

Run: Just type duf in the terminal.

It groups local devices and network mounts separately with clear visual bars.

3. File Manager Alternative: Nemo

If you find Nautilus too restrictive, many Ubuntu users switch to Nemo (the file manager from Cinnamon). Nemo still supports a persistent status bar that shows “Free Space” at all times at the bottom of the window.

Install: sudo apt install nemo

Once installed, go to Edit > Preferences > Display and ensure “Show status bar” is checked.

4. GNOME Extension: Removable Drive Menu

Since you are dealing with multiple media drives, this extension puts an icon in your top bar that, when clicked, shows all drives and their remaining capacity in a clean dropdown menu

[pavlos]

if you use duf, it looks like this:

╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ 3 network devices                                                                                    │
├──────────────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┬───────────────────────────────┬──────┬─────────────────┤
│ MOUNTED ON       │   SIZE │   USED │  AVAIL │              USE%             │ TYPE │ FILESYSTEM      │
├──────────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────────────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┤
│ /home/user/nas   │ 457.4G │ 113.4G │ 343.9G │ [####................]  24.8% │ cifs │ //nas/public    │
│ /home/user/share │  21.0T │  88.7G │  20.9T │ [....................]   0.4% │ cifs │ //truenas/share │
│ /home/user/test  │ 453.9G │  90.6G │ 363.4G │ [###.................]  20.0% │ cifs │ //nvr/test      │
╰──────────────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴───────────────────────────────┴──────┴─────────────────╯

[reticentrobot]

Thanks everyone! I’ll give these all a look, I appreciate the help!!

[ericmarceau]

If you are interested in a somewhat different look, which remains on your desktop, as a layer over your background image, you might want to consider a well-worn tool:

• conky

The following is a snapshot of what the “live sensor” reporting give you:

• 

To see some discussion on that tool, I will point to my own posting elsewhere, but that entire topic can help you understand its capabilities and develop a sense of what can or cannot be presented.

For a different view of what can be done, here is another snapshot, for which the configuration code is offered here:

• 

[ericmarceau]

Well, I decided to challenge myself with an attempt to reproduce what was shared as a Windows-originating snapshot of the desired look.

I invite you to see the results, and what I used, by visiting

• Windows-like Disk Reporting

If you are willing to work with me, I can tweak it further to handle the network-based drives that are mounted.

[reticentrobot]

I read through that thread, but I’m not sure I’m 100% following - is this something that is used with conky, or it’s own thing? I’m definitely willing to provide whatever is needed.

[peterwhite23]

Does it have to be that bar look? Because simply opening the “Other locations” bookmark in Nautilus shows all known partitions in a similar way to Windows Explorer, just not with the bars.

[corradoventu]

In Ubuntu “Disk user analyzer” aka baobab or system monitor:

[pavlos]

In disk usage analyzer, remote mounts are shown.

In system monitor > File systems, remote mounts are not shown.

unable to upload image.png

My df -h

Filesystem       Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2         32G   12G   19G  39% /
//truenas/share   21T   89G   21T   1% /home/user/share

[reticentrobot]

I think I confused things a bit with my Windows screenshot because the two drives on there are mapped as a network drive remotely, but those two drives are actually local drives on the Ubuntu machine in question. I don’t have any mounted network locations on the Ubuntu machine (though the remote mounts information could be useful to me in the future). On the Ubuntu machine, those two drives are local disks that are mounted at /MediaA and /MediaB in fstab:

#additions for ext4 drives
UUID=f2529fb0-d255-4403-8b46-02215b06b1ce /MediaA ext4 defaults,nofail 0 0
UUID=fc863a97-18c4-4160-9459-c4511e5ed614 /swap ext4 defaults,nofail 0 0

#ntfs drives
UUID=74CEBC4ECEBC09FE /MediaB ntfs-3g defaults,nofail 0 0

This is what I’m seeing in Other Locations in Nautilus (it doesn’t show them at all):

and this is what I see in Disk Usage Analyzer (also not showing at all):

They do both show up using duf, haven’t had a chance to try out conky yet.

[reticentrobot]

Just getting a chance to read through most of everyone’s replies. It looks like the “File Systems” tab is what I was looking for (though I expected to find that in Files/Nautilus instead of System Monitor so I think I will check out Nemo ). Thank you!!

[peterwhite23]

@reticentrobot

This is what I’m seeing in Other Locations in Nautilus (it doesn’t show them at all):

Oh, sorry! I’ve just realized that I was looking at my automounts, which showed up alongside “Ubuntu” (/).

Never mind me, then.

[ericmarceau]

That script is independant of conky.

To help me expand the scope of my above-mentionned script, would you be willing to share with me the report from the command

findmnt -D -t nosquashfs,notmpfs

[reticentrobot]

SOURCE FSTYPE SIZE USED AVAIL USE% TARGET
udev devtmpfs 23.4G 0 23.4G 0% /dev
/dev/nvme1n1p2 ext4 467.3G 105.4G 338.1G 23% /
/dev/nvme0n1p1 ext4 86.6G 28K 82.1G 0% /swap
/dev/nvme0n1p2 ext4 380.7G 341.7G 19.6G 90% /mnt/jackdaw
/dev/nvme1n1p1 vfat 1G 6.1M 1G 1% /boot/efi
/dev/sdb1 ext4 14.4T 12.7T 1019.4G 88% /MediaA
/dev/sda1 fuseblk 14.6T 13.6T 986.9G 93% /MediaB
//192.168.1.2/movies`` cifs 18.1T 12.8T 5.3T 71% /mnt/moviesbk
portal fuse.portal /run/user/1000/doc
portal fuse.portal /run/user/120/doc
portal fuse.portal /run/user/1001/doc

I think you’re after the network mount info right? This is from the machine I was posting about, I only have one network mount on that machine - for my movie backups:
//192.168.1.2/movies`` cifs 18.1T 12.8T 5.3T 71% /mnt/moviesbk