Baobab (also called Disk Usage Analyzer) is a utility program default to Ubuntu that serves the purpose of disk usage analyzer that is showing ranking of directories in the filesystem based on used capacity in megabytes. With Baobab, you know which folder takes up how much space in comparison to other folders in a complete list. Further, this is very useful for example if you plan to remove some unused folders to free disk space but don't know which folders are safe to remove. And to Ubuntu users, Baobab fills the same purposes as KDE Filelight to Kubuntu users as well as WinDirStat (GNU GPL) to Windows users. Now let's start reading!
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Screenshots
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(a) |
(b) |
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(d) |
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Where:
(a) Baobab window on its first run. It shows used/free disk space visual information by default. Baobab logo is visible to the left under cursor.
(b) Baobab analyzing our Home folder. It shows a ranking of directories and a colorful pie chart, with "snap" (43%), "Downloads" (34%) and ".config" (8%) as the top three of all directories occupying disk space. Hovering cursor will reveal details on the pie chart.
(c) Continuing (b), further showing contents of analyzed "Downloads" directory and its colorful pie chart to the right, with details visible after hovering cursor onto it.
(d) Baobab analyzing our System folder. It shows results like (b) with "usr" (45%), "var" (36%) and "home" (17%) as the top three of all directories occupying our disk space.
(e) Continuing (d), further showing contents of analyzed "var" directory and its colorful pie chart to the right, with deeper "lib" inside and then "snapd" inside of it with the largest disk use (4.9 GB) among other directories.
(f) Baobab's User Manual. You can show this by pressing F1 when running Baobab.
Description
Baobab or GNOME Disk Usage Analyzer is a utility program preinstalled by default on Ubuntu that serves the purpose to scan, analyze and show a ranking of the whole hard disk filesystem measured based on capacity uses. This leads to the ability to show free disk space in a more detailed way. On Ubuntu 24.04, Baobab reaches version 46.
Purposes
1. Scan a disk filesystem.
2. Analyze the usage of each folder in the select filesystem.
3. Show a sorted listing of whole folders based on size.
4. Visualize a chart based on that listing.
5. Do any of 1 to 4 to any given hard disk filesystem or any given folder.
How to run the program
There are several methods to run Baobab. Pick one of these:
1. Open applications menu -> type "baobab" -> click Disk Usage Analyzer -> Baobab runs.
2. Open Terminal -> type baobab -> press Enter -> Baobab runs.
3. Press Alt+F2 -> type baobab -> press Enter -> Baobab runs.
Location on screen
Baobab can be found on the Ubuntu applications menu.
Baobab's logo is identified as a circle divided into parts of pink, blue, yellow and green colors.
Examples of usage
1. To scan your Ubuntu filesystem:
2. To scan your Home directory:
3. To scan your data partition:
4. To scan any folder you want to know the size ranking:
Contributing to Baobab
Baobab is part of GNOME. Thus, you can contribute to Baobab just like how you contribute to other GNOME applications. You can do many things to participate such as make a donation to help fund the project, or help translate Baobab to your language, or if you are a programmer, help improving Baobab's source code, or simply reporting a bug to the project is considered a contribution and many more. Programmatically, Baobab is written in Vala language with GTK libraries by using (optionally) GNOME Builder code editor. Finally, your contribution to Baobab will benefit GNOME, Ubuntu and other GNU/Linux projects as well. To start participating, feel free to see Baobab's Official Webpage from References section below.
Similar programs
KDE Filelight, similar to Baobab but from The KDE Project.
WinDirStat, similar to Baobab but for Windows.
References
GNOME Disk Usage Analyzer Official Webpage
Baobab User Manual Documentation
In this Series
<- Go Back to "Deja Dup (Backups Manager)"
<- Go Back to "List of All Ubuntu 24.04 Default Applications"
-> Go next to "Calculator"
-> Go next to "Calendar"
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