Disk health and cleanup guide

Free space per drive Read-only

Shows used and free space. Windows labels GiB (1024-based) as "GB".

Get-PSDrive -PSProvider FileSystem | Select-Object Name, @{n='Usado(GiB)';e={[math]::Round($_.Used/1GB,1)}}, @{n='Livre(GiB)';e={[math]::Round($_.Free/1GB,1)}}

Drive health status Read-only

Type (SSD or HDD), health and operational status as Windows reports it.

Get-PhysicalDisk | Select-Object FriendlyName, MediaType, BusType, HealthStatus, OperationalStatus, @{n='Tamanho(GiB)';e={[math]::Round($_.Size/1GB)}}

Wear, temperature and power-on hours Read-only

Reliability counters (needs administrator). Some drives and USB adapters do not expose them and the columns stay empty. Wear is the SSD wear percentage.

Get-PhysicalDisk | Get-StorageReliabilityCounter | Select-Object DeviceId, Wear, Temperature, PowerOnHours, ReadErrorsTotal, WriteErrorsTotal

Check the file system (no repair) Read-only

Without options chkdsk only reads and reports. Do not use /f or /r before you have a backup: on a failing drive, repair can make things worse.

chkdsk C: /scan

Size of the temp folder Read-only

How many GiB your temp folder takes.

[math]::Round((Get-ChildItem $env:TEMP -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Measure-Object Length -Sum).Sum / 1GB, 2)

Analyse the component store (WinSxS) Read-only

Tells you whether cleaning is worthwhile. WinSxS looks huge in Explorer but much of it is hard links. Needs administrator.

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore

Re-optimise an SSD (TRIM) Changes (safe)

Tells the SSD which blocks are free. Windows already does this weekly; you only need it if in doubt. Replace C with the drive letter. Needs administrator.

Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter C -ReTrim -Verbose

Defragment (HDD only) Changes (safe)

Only useful on mechanical hard drives. On an SSD it is unnecessary and wastes write cycles: Windows handles it by itself.

⚠ Do not run this on an SSD.

Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter D -Defrag -Verbose

Clean up old update components Deletes

Removes superseded versions of Windows components. Afterwards you cannot uninstall updates already applied. Needs administrator.

⚠ Not reversible.

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

Turn off hibernation (frees hiberfil.sys) Changes (safe)

Frees several GB but disables hibernation and Fast Startup. To undo: powercfg /h on. Needs administrator.

powercfg /h off

Delete temporary files Deletes

Deletes the contents of your temp folder. Close apps first; files in use are skipped.

⚠ Deletes permanently (does not go to the Recycle Bin).

Remove-Item "$env:TEMP\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Empty the Recycle Bin Deletes

Deletes everything in the Recycle Bin on all drives.

⚠ Look inside the Recycle Bin first.

Clear-RecycleBin -Force

Free space on the data volume Read-only

On recent macOS your files live on the Data volume. macOS uses decimal units (GB = 1000³). "Purgeable" space (caches and snapshots) can be freed by the system.

df -H /System/Volumes/Data

List drives and SMART status Read-only

Shows whether the drive is solid state and its SMART status. On internal SSDs it may say "Not Supported"; that is not a problem.

diskutil info disk0 | grep -E "Device / Media Name|Solid State|SMART Status"

Verify the volume (read-only) Read-only

Checks the file system structure without changing anything. May take a few minutes. Equivalent to Disk Utility "First Aid".

diskutil verifyVolume /

Biggest folders in your home Read-only

First level, sorted by size. To go into a folder, repeat with its path.

du -hd 1 ~ 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head -15

Biggest caches Read-only

Caches in ~/Library/Caches are rebuilt by apps.

du -sh ~/Library/Caches/* 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head -15

List local Time Machine snapshots Read-only

Snapshots take "purgeable" space and macOS removes them when needed. You rarely need to touch them.

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

Delete a local snapshot Deletes

Use the date shown by the previous command (format YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS).

⚠ You lose that local restore point.

sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2026-01-15-103000

Unavailable Xcode simulators Deletes

Deletes simulators for runtimes that are no longer installed.

xcrun simctl delete unavailable

Xcode derived data Deletes

Intermediate builds. Xcode recreates them, but the next build is slower.

⚠ rm -rf deletes without the Trash. Check the path.

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

Homebrew: dry-run cleanup Read-only

Shows what "brew cleanup" would delete, without deleting.

brew cleanup -n

Homebrew: remove old versions Deletes

Deletes old package versions and the download cache.

brew cleanup

Docker: see space used Read-only

Images, containers and volumes. The Docker.raw file grows but does not shrink by itself.

docker system df

Docker: prune unused data Deletes

Removes stopped containers, unused networks and dangling images. It does not delete volumes or images in use (do not add -a or --volumes unless you are sure).

⚠ It asks for confirmation. Read the list before saying yes.

docker system prune

Free space per file system Read-only

Ignores in-memory file systems (tmpfs). Use df -H for decimal units.

df -hT -x tmpfs -x devtmpfs

SSD or HDD? Read-only

ROTA = 1 means a spinning disk (HDD); 0 means SSD.

lsblk -d -o NAME,SIZE,ROTA,MODEL

SMART health (SATA) Read-only

Install smartmontools (sudo apt install smartmontools). PASSED is good but guarantees nothing: also check the attributes with -a (Reallocated_Sector_Ct, Current_Pending_Sector).

sudo smartctl -H /dev/sda
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda

SMART health (NVMe) Read-only

Look at Percentage Used (wear), Available Spare, Media and Data Integrity Errors and Critical Warning (should be 0).

sudo smartctl -a /dev/nvme0
# ou, com o pacote nvme-cli:
sudo nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0

Biggest folders (staying on one disk) Read-only

The -x stops du from crossing into other mounted disks. For something interactive: sudo apt install ncdu then sudo ncdu -x /.

sudo du -xh / --max-depth=2 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head -25

Files over 500 MB Read-only

Searches from your home. Swap ~ for / for the whole system (with sudo).

find ~ -xdev -type f -size +500M -exec ls -lh {} + 2>/dev/null

Find node_modules folders Read-only

Lists them by size. Each can be recreated with npm install in its project.

find ~ -name node_modules -type d -prune -exec du -sh {} + 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head -20

Biggest caches in your home Read-only

Apps recreate what you delete here, but check the name first (rm -rf ~/.cache/NAME).

du -sh ~/.cache/* 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head -15

Space used by systemd journals Read-only

How much the logs take.

journalctl --disk-usage

Shrink the systemd journals Deletes

Deletes the oldest logs until they total 200 MB.

⚠ You lose old logs that could help diagnose problems.

sudo journalctl --vacuum-size=200M

APT: clear downloaded packages Changes (safe)

Deletes only cached .deb files. Safe. On Fedora: sudo dnf clean all.

sudo apt-get clean

APT: see what autoremove would delete Read-only

Simulation. Read the list; only then, if it looks right, run without --dry-run.

sudo apt-get autoremove --dry-run

Re-optimise the SSD (TRIM) Changes (safe)

Most distributions already run fstrim.timer weekly: check with systemctl status fstrim.timer.

sudo fstrim -av

Docker: space used and cleanup Deletes

The prune removes stopped containers, unused networks and dangling images. It leaves volumes alone.

⚠ Read the list before confirming.

docker system df
docker system prune

Flatpak: remove unused runtimes Deletes

Asks for confirmation before removing.

flatpak uninstall --unused