Find Directories Burning Inodes

Inode usage is high and you need to locate which directories contain the most regular files.

Command

find /lab/disk-inode-cleanup/var/cache/app -xdev -type f -printf '%h\n' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head

Before you run this

System impact: Read-only. Can create load on large logs, directories, filesystems, or process tables.

When not to use it: Do not assume the largest count is safe to delete; identify the application owner and cache semantics first.

A count of regular files grouped by parent directory, sorted highest first.

Read-only, can be slow. Nothing changes. The command counts files by parent directory.

May require elevated permissions on protected paths or service-owned files.

Scope this to the smallest useful path or service on busy systems.

Recovery / rollback: no state is changed.

Use when df -ih is high and large-file searches do not explain write failures.

Do not assume the largest count is safe to delete; identify the application owner and cache semantics first.

Explanation-only example

This example is intentionally illustrative. It shows the command shape without killing real processes or changing your machine.

demo@lab:~$

$ df -ih /work/disk-inode-cleanup

Filesystem     Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/vda1        25G   19G  5G  80% /work
tmpfs            245K    14  245K    1% /run

$ find /work/disk-inode-cleanup/var/cache/app -xdev -type f -printf '%h\n' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head

    120 /work/disk-inode-cleanup/var/cache/app/shards/a
     40 /work/disk-inode-cleanup/var/cache/app/shards/b

View commands shown

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