Useful Tools to Clean Up Disk Space in Ubuntu and Linux Mint

As time goes on, you may notice your disk capacity is gradually depleting and decreasing. The explanation for this is that over time, junk files quickly fill up your hard drive. This occurs mainly during the installation of software packages. During installation, these files are usually cached in the /var/cache/ directory before installation just in case you need to install them again. Unfortunately, Ubuntu does not have an automatic way to do disk clean up. Thus, they accumulate with each successive package installation and devote large chunks of space on your drive.

1. Stacer
Stacer is a free and open-source graphical application that monitors and optimizes your disk space. It provides an intuitive and attractive user interface that gives you a glimpse of your resource usage statistics such as RAM, CPU, and disk utilization.

Worth noting is a system cleaner that gets rid of package caches that occupy a large amount of disk space. Apart from that, it also empties the trash and clears crash reports, application cache, and logs, thereby freeing up disk space.

2. Ubuntu Cleaner
Ubuntu Cleaner is developed in Python and is another GUI option that does a decent job of freeing up disk space in Ubuntu/Mint. The graphical tool cleans the system by deleting the following files:

Old Linux kernel
Clear browser cache
Thumbnail cache
Clear App Cache
APT cache
Unneeded packages

Ubuntu Cleaner is open-source and completely free to use.

3. BleachBit
Designed for Windows and Linux systems, BleachBit is a free and open-source disk cleaner that quickly frees up your disk when your PC fills up with junk files.

With BleachBit, you can shred temporary files, delete cookies, delete internet history, and remove application log files and unneeded files in the system. BleachBit acts as a cleaner for web browsers like Firefox and Chrome.