How to Analyze and Clean Disk Space on macOS Using `ncdu` and `df`

# 🧹 How to Analyze and Clean Disk Space on macOS Using `ncdu` and `df`

Keeping your macOS system clean and your disk space under control is essential — especially when you're building large projects like Xcode apps or using environments like Node.js. In this post, you'll learn how to inspect, analyze, and free up space using `ncdu` and `df`.

## 📦 Step 1: Install `ncdu` (Disk Usage Analyzer)

`ncdu` (NCurses Disk Usage) is a fast, interactive command-line tool for analyzing disk usage. First, install it via Homebrew:

```bash
brew install ncdu

🔍 Step 2: Scan Your Home Directory

Use ncdu to recursively analyze your home directory:

ncdu ~

This will launch an interactive UI where you can:

• Browse hidden files and folders
• Sort by size
• Delete files interactively (press d)
• Navigate folders (Enter, q to quit)

💽 Step 3: Check Overall Disk Space with df

Use the built-in df command to check how much disk space is left:

df -h ~

Sample Output:

Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk3s1s1  500G   390G   110G    78%    /

This tells you:

• Total size of your disk
• How much is used
• How much is available

🧹 Step 4: Clean Common Large Directories

1. DerivedData (Xcode)

Used for build cache — safe to delete:

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/*

2. Archives (Xcode)

Stores archived .xcarchive files. Delete only if you no longer need them for distribution or symbolication:

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives/*

3. Trash

rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

4. .npm, .cache, etc.

rm -rf ~/.npm/*
rm -rf ~/.cache/*

5. Find and Remove All node_modules

If you have multiple JavaScript projects (e.g., under hasdev/*), you can remove all node_modules like this:

find hasdev -type d -name node_modules -exec rm -rf {} +

🧠 Pro Tip: Combined Overview

Want a quick view of both disk usage and available space?

df -h ~
ncdu ~

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✅ Summary

Tool	Purpose	Usage Example
ncdu	Analyze disk usage interactively	ncdu ~
df	View total and free disk space	df -h ~
find	Search and clean large dirs	find . -name node_modules

Using ncdu + df gives you a powerful combo for managing disk usage without any bloated GUI tools. Clean regularly, and automate the tedious bits to keep your macOS development environment lean and fast.

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