DiskVu

A fast, interactive terminal UI for visualizing disk usage — built with Go and tcell.

Navigate your filesystem, see directory sizes sorted by largest first, and delete space-hogs — all from the terminal.

Features

• Concurrent scanning — directories are sized in parallel using du, with a pure-Go fallback
• Live progress — spinner, progress bar, and per-directory status as scanning happens
• Visual usage bars — proportional bars and percentages relative to the current directory total
• Emoji size indicators — quick visual cue for file/folder sizes (🐋 TB, 🐘 GB, 🦊 MB…)
• File type icons — recognizes common extensions (archives, video, audio, images, code, etc.)
• Smart caching — revisiting a directory is instant; cache is invalidated when mtime changes
• Background prefetch — silently pre-scans the largest uncached subdirectory while you browse
• Delete support — remove files or folders with a confirmation prompt (d)
• Open in Finder/file manager — jump to any item in your GUI file manager (o)
• Network FS skip — optionally skip NFS/CIFS/SSHFS mounts with --skip-network
• Protected paths — system directories and home root are guarded against accidental deletion
• Cross-platform — macOS and Linux

Installation

macOS / Linux — one-liner (recommended):

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MehdiBenfredj/DiskVu/main/install.sh | sh

The script will:

• Auto-detect your OS (macOS/Linux) and architecture (amd64/arm64)
• Download the latest pre-built binary from GitHub Releases
• Verify the SHA-256 checksum before installing
• Install to /usr/local/bin/diskvu (uses sudo only if needed)

From source (requires Go 1.21+):

git clone https://github.com/MehdiBenfredj/DiskVu
cd DiskVu
go build -o diskvu .
sudo mv diskvu /usr/local/bin/

Via go install (requires Go 1.21+):

go install github.com/MehdiBenfredj/diskvu@latest

Quick run without installing:

go run . [path]

Usage

diskvu [flags] [path]

Flag	Description
--skip-network	Skip NFS, CIFS, and other network/remote filesystems
-V	Print version and exit

If path is omitted, the current directory (.) is used.

macOS tip: for full disk access grant Terminal (or your terminal app) Full Disk Access in
System Settings › Privacy & Security › Full Disk Access.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
↑ / k / Ctrl-P	Move cursor up
↓ / j / Ctrl-N	Move cursor down
PgUp / PgDn	Page up / down
Home / g	Jump to top
End / G	Jump to bottom
Enter / → / l	Enter directory
Backspace / ← / h	Go back (parent directory)
~	Jump to home directory
r	Rescan current directory (bypass cache)
d	Delete selected file or directory
o	Open selected item in Finder / file manager
q / Esc / Q	Quit

Uninstall

sudo rm /usr/local/bin/diskvu

Releasing a new version

Releases are fully automated via GoReleaser and GitHub Actions.
To publish a new release, just tag and push:

git tag v2.0.0
git push origin v2.0.0

GitHub Actions will automatically:

1. Build binaries for macOS (arm64/amd64) and Linux (arm64/amd64)
2. Package each into a .tar.gz archive
3. Generate a checksums.txt file
4. Create a GitHub Release with all assets and a changelog

Dependencies

• gdamore/tcell — terminal rendering
• mattn/go-runewidth — correct width for Unicode/emoji characters

License

MIT