If you are an enduser of Linux, more specifically succinctly MX Linux, there is a tool titled MX cleanup, available that is installed by default. MX Linux is a Debian based derivation Linux distribution. You can remove old Linux files with this free MX Cleanup tool that is already installed when you install MX Linux operating system.
There may be a similar cleanup tool available on other Linux operating system distributions. Once you open MX Cleanup you will see five major sections. Also, you will be asked to enter in your root password in order to use this file cleanup tool.
You will want to select the user account that you want to clean up files for under the "Select user:" drop down menu. Now look for "Clean Folders". You will see two options titled "~/.thumbnails" and "~/.cache".
You will want to place a check into a check box for one or both of these options. MX cleanup will remove files in the folder(s) that you have selected. Actually both of these folders are considered hidden system folders since they have a period . before the folder name.
The next section is named "Clear APT cache". Apt is a system tool that allows you to install software, remove software, and install Linux system updates. You can either remove all apt files, old apt files, or refrain from deleting any of these apt files.
You will view three options.
* Old files
* All files
* Don't empty
You can only select one of these three options by selecting one of these three radio buttons. The next section deals with your user profile log files and is named "Delete Logs". You can choose "Old logs, "All logs", or "Don't empty".
You can only choose one of these options by choosing one of these radio buttons. You will view these three options.
* Old logs
* All logs
* Don't empty
The "Logs older than:" feature allows you to delete log files that are older than what you choose. Setting this to 0 days I believe will delete all logs.
"Empty Trash" is the next section. Again there are three options. You can only choose one option by choosing one of the three radio buttons.
These three options are listed as:
* Selected user
* All users
* Don't empty
The first option "Selected user" will empty your trash can for the user account that you selected under the "Select user" drop down menu. The second option "All users" will empty the trash can for all user accounts created on your MX linux installation. "Don't empty" will not empty any trash can for any user.
The "Trash older than:" feature allows you to empty trash can files that are older than what you choose. Setting this to 0 days I believe will empty all your trash can items. The last section is titled "Schedule".
You can schedule the time that you want MX Cleanup to remove old Linux files by choosing "Daily", "Monthly", or "Weekly". This will automate the MX cleanup process. Once you choose one of the three afore mentioned options, you will not need to open the MX cleanup tool again.
I believe that this will create an automated system process called a cron job. This schedule option will automatically create an automated system process so that you do not have to manually use MX cleanup tool. You will see these four total choices for "Schedule".
* No automatic clean
* Daily
* Weekly
* Monthly
You can only choose one of these four options by choosing the option radio button. Now after you are certain you have chosen the options and settings you prefer with MX cleanup, you can click on "Apply". This will actually both save your settings and run this application program tool.
Depending on how much data you have and which settings you choose, eventually you will see a small window titled "Done". You will see a similar message in this small window.
Cleanup command done
72 MiB were freed
There will be an "OK" button to click to close that small window. You can go ahead and click on "Apply" again to run this MX cleanup tool. If you scheduled a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule, then you can close MX cleanup, and the program will automatically run behind the scenes so to speak.
MX Cleanup Tool to Remove Old Linux Files - Video Transcript
00:01
ultra video parity
00:03
boy i wanted to describe how to use this
00:07
mx cleanup tool on mx linux which is a
00:10
debian
00:12
derivation distribution
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what basically this tool allows you to
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do is to possibly clean up your
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profile files
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now
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it is called mx cleanup there might be a
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similar tool on other linux
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distributions however do not quote me
00:33
on mx linux you also must
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log in with your root account when you
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open up mx linux from the start programs
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menu option
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it will ask for your root password so
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you're going to have to provide your
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root credentials root account
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credentials
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it's a pretty basic little utility it
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what this is is just a graphical user
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interface for these commands that you
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would run
01:00
manually you would write you would use
01:01
the rm command in a command prompt which
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i'm not going to demonstrate
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it says free disk for user select user
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so there's a drop down menu if you have
01:11
multiple user accounts
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then you'll be able to
01:15
remove
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and clear some of those files for each
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user account that you have i only have
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one
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now it's going to clean these
01:23
let me reset it to default is there a
01:26
reset button maybe not i thought there
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was at one time
01:30
it's all good now the settings that you
01:32
see on screen will not be the same
01:35
as on your screen if you
01:38
open mx cleanup for the first time they
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will be set to something different
01:43
okay on the left hand side you have
01:45
clean folders
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and then dots thumbnails and then dot
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cash
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and then you would place a check
01:55
mark into each box
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or whichever one you want to clear
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clean
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and
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the dot thumbnail and dot cache is a
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hidden folders those are hidden folders
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plural
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in your user profile so you would go to
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slash home slash user as an example and
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then you would want to turn on view
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hidden
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files and folders
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and then it will be a dot and then
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thumbnail.cache it's going to clean your
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cache folder and it's going to clean
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your thumbnails folder if you select
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both
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now on we'll just go what left to right
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then you have clear
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apt cache apt is a tool that allows you
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to
02:43
install
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remove and also install updates on mx
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linux which is a debian derivation linux
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distribution
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you could select old files which would
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be older cache now app that tool has a
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cache you can manually remove it you can
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go to the
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what is it app well the command is apt
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get clean all i think or app to get
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clear all or you could browse to that
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directory
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and
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manually remove with the rm command
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which i'm not going to demonstrate
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i'm going to choose all files
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and it'll clear all of the app cache
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files just the cache and it's not going
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to remove any programs it's not going to
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you know i'm saying it's not no
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just the cache for that apt program
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which
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some people use app dash get which is
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the same apt and app dash get are the
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same
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tool same com
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program all right
03:42
now on the left hand side again delete
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logs
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you could select old logs
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and then you could select don't empty or
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you could select all logs so
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the clear app cache you can only choose
03:55
one
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all right
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and then same thing with delete logs you
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can only choose one
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i always have all logs so it
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there i think it's var log i could be
04:07
incorrect but i but i believe it is the
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the slash var logs for your profile
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now you can choose the logs older then
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now if you select old locks i'm not sure
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i think you can still choose how old
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can you yes you can i'm not going to
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fiddle with that because i always choose
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all logs however if you were to choose
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old logs
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then
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you could also choose
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how many
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days so logs older than so all logs
04:45
older than seven days will get removed
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with this tool all right so i'm going to
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set back to all logs empty trash
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you can manually empty the trash what
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you would do is on your desktop in mx
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linux right click the trash can and then
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select what is it empty yes empty
05:02
this tool is supposed to empty it
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however i've noticed it doesn't always
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empty my trash it could be my computer
05:10
this is an older computer in the it's
05:12
very finicky
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the operating system is starting to have
05:16
problems and so in the future i'm going
05:18
to install a different operating system
05:20
and i might make a video i might make a
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video when i
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most likely install
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bsd which is a unix type operating
05:30
system anyways i digress back to this so
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empty trash you could
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empty trash for the selected user which
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would be up here at the top
05:38
select user to repair
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or all users which i had selected or
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don't empty
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maybe you have some important trash
05:48
one man's
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trash is another man's treasure
05:53
you know what i'm saying maybe you have
05:54
some items in the trash can or you're
05:56
just not sure if you want to empty your
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trash
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you can select don't empty i'm going to
06:00
choose all users although i only have
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one user for now and then this also
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trashed older than 30 days
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oh you know what that's what it is okay
06:12
i just learned something
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i think the reason why my trash can
06:15
wasn't empty all the time is because i
06:18
did not have any trash items older than
06:20
30 days
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that could be it and then also my logs
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they they it may only even if you select
06:29
all logs
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it may only delete yes i believe so this
06:34
variable i wish there was more
06:35
explanation but there might be a a page
06:38
there might be a mx linux
06:41
page specifically for this tool but i'm
06:43
not sure i just learned how to use it on
06:45
my own
06:46
okay so that makes logical sense
06:48
what i think what you would do is you
06:50
would select
06:51
logs older than zero days that'll delete
06:54
everything and then the same thing with
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the trash you would select zero days i'm
06:58
gonna set it right now because that's
07:00
most likely what it was all right
07:03
but i'm gonna leave the
07:05
all logs on all users okay now finally
07:07
you can
07:09
run it now
07:10
now
07:11
or you can
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schedule
07:14
it now you can schedule it
07:17
where it would not automatically clean i
07:20
i think it creates a cron job
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i'm pretty sure it probably creates a
07:24
cron job which i'm not going to just
07:26
discuss what a current job is
07:29
just quickly a cron job i'm not going to
07:31
get into great detail cron job is just
07:33
an automated job in linux you can also
07:36
create it with a command line interface
07:38
and it just
07:40
schedules tasks for you you can
07:42
basically almost any program in linux
07:44
you can set it to it just automates it
07:46
it'll run it at a schedule it'll if
07:48
whatever you tell you i'm not going to
07:50
discuss it any further
07:52
okay so no automatic clean which is what
07:54
i said i like to manually run this tool
07:56
on my own accord so i can
07:59
eight minute mark so that i can monitor
08:01
it in case any problems occur
08:04
daily
08:06
you can set it so that every day it'll
08:08
run automatically and you don't have to
08:10
do anything you don't even have to open
08:12
this program again it because it's a
08:14
automatic system job most likely a crime
08:17
job weekly
08:18
every seven days it'll automatically run
08:21
or monthly every i believe 30 days it'll
08:23
run i'm going to set it back to
08:25
no automatic clean now
08:28
maybe in overtime i will discuss the run
08:30
you know what it does have the tool i
08:32
may open it up
08:34
i may have to change something in my
08:36
encoder to show it to you if not i may
08:39
make another video describing how to use
08:41
the run disk usage analyzer
08:43
okay i'm going to click on apply
08:46
now if you set it a schedule i think you
08:49
would click apply and click close and
08:51
then
08:52
it will run whenever it whenever you
08:55
schedule it
08:57
which it doesn't it doesn't look like it
08:59
allows you to change the time
09:01
so i'm not sure when it'll run
09:04
but i wouldn't worry about it just click
09:06
apply so that these changes are saved
09:08
that's another thing you want to do
09:11
okay so i'm going to click on apply and
09:13
it's going to run actually right now
09:16
cleanup command done
09:17
677
09:19
megabytes for free
09:21
and that's not an exaggeration let me
09:23
make sure my encoder
09:24
oh it's not capturing that part
09:27
oh let me see if i can quickly make a
09:29
change here i don't know if i'll be able
09:31
to
09:33
so that you can see that i'm not
09:34
exaggerating
09:36
oh program
09:39
oh i already have this usage analyzer
09:42
you know what okay i'm going to quickly
09:44
make a change
09:45
and since i do not free my freestyle my
09:47
videos
09:48
i'm going to see if i can select that
09:54
okay now i'm going to click ok and i'm
09:56
going to transition it's going to be
09:58
small and it's going to be in the upper
10:00
left hand corner you should see it now
10:04
it says clean up command done 677
10:07
megabytes for freed
10:09
that's a lot
10:11
and i ran it about a week or two ago i
10:14
think was the last time i ran it
10:16
yeah i think it was closer to a week ago
10:19
all right so
10:20
let me then remove that
10:24
and then transition back
10:26
and then
10:30
oh okay back to mx linux cleanup and
10:34
then transition okay i already
10:36
transitioned all right cool
10:38
all right so now i think i'm gonna go
10:40
ahead and well i'm just gonna show you
10:42
this usage analyzer i don't wanna go
10:44
into any details it is
10:47
built into
10:49
this tool i'm going to click apply again
10:51
and run it again oh another one megabyte
10:53
were freed up you won't be able to see
10:54
that but i'm telling you cleanup command
10:56
done one megabyte we're free i'll run it
10:59
well i'll click apply on it the third
11:00
time uh it's all good most likely
11:03
nothing is else is being cleaned up that
11:05
could be a false positive i'm not too
11:07
worried
11:08
all right
11:10
now i'm going to click on rung disk
11:12
usage analyzer and i think my encoder
11:15
should capture it
11:19
[Music]
11:22
yes
11:24
right here okay now i'm not going to
11:26
discuss this in great detail
11:28
but this tool is available
11:31
via the mx linux linux
11:35
time for me to
11:37
quit
11:38
recording this video
11:40
mx cleanup
11:42
i'm not gonna go over any of this this
11:44
will be a separate video
11:47
i'm not sure why mx you know what it
11:49
could be because
11:51
you notice that there your hard drive
11:54
space is filling up now as you can see
11:58
you can scan it shows you your devices
12:01
and locations
12:02
now without demonstrating
12:04
it shows you your hard disks i have
12:07
multiple hard disks obviously and i it
12:09
also shows your home folder which is
12:11
slack which was the user account
12:15
that i used in mxcleanup it's the same
12:18
user account that the slash home slash
12:20
user was the user account in that drop
12:23
down
12:24
menu when where there was only one user
12:27
account available
12:30
now what you would do is you would click
12:32
on one of these and then it takes a
12:34
while it takes a few minutes it will
12:37
scan that folder or that hard
12:40
drive or even a flash drive
12:42
i'm pretty sure if you had a universal
12:45
serial bus flash drive it would show up
12:47
in this list you click on it it takes a
12:49
while because it scans that entire
12:51
device
12:53
it will tell you
12:56
this is foreshadowing you're going to
12:58
have to check out my video
13:00
about this usage analyzer on linux
13:03
basically what it does is you can narrow
13:05
down what program what folder what files
13:09
are using up disk space
13:12
and it even has
13:14
graphical interface
13:17
different colors for different
13:19
amount of disk space being used for
13:21
example red for alert
13:23
and that way you can narrow down
13:25
why your hard disk space is being filled
13:28
up and then in
13:30
closing let me transition back in
13:33
summation
13:34
the this cleanup tool could help
13:38
clean up file maybe you're trying to
13:40
install a program
13:41
and it's giving you a warning on mx
13:43
linux that you do not have enough disk
13:45
space well you could use this tool and i
13:48
just proved to you that it cleaned up
13:50
677 megabytes that's quite a bit
13:55
it can clean up gigabytes of disk space
13:58
and you
14:00
i'm not surprised because i've used
14:01
linux for decades now actually
14:04
you might be surprised that log files
14:07
and
14:08
thumbnails and cache that can and your
14:11
trash can
14:13
every time you delete a large video file
14:15
and you don't empty your trash can that
14:18
counts against your disk space
14:20
so this tool can help with that regards
14:24
and
14:24
[Music]
14:26
it could possibly allow you to narrow
14:29
down what
14:30
actual what is it your log files is it
14:33
your folders
14:35
well your cache folders is it your even
14:38
your app cache
14:40
is it your trash can that is filling up
14:42
space that may be causing a further
14:45
problem
14:49
you could use this tool for like i
14:51
already articulated another reason why
14:54
is
14:55
[Music]
14:56
something even on window excuse me micro
14:59
craft microship micro slop wooden blows
15:01
operating system and apple mac and crap
15:03
operating system
15:05
temporary files
15:07
which would include log files temporary
15:09
internet cache
15:11
history can cause
15:13
problems
15:15
in your web browser or it can actually
15:17
cause problems installing programs
15:19
that's a another separate video i'm just
15:21
giving you some additional tips that
15:23
that you may be able to use mx cleanup
15:26
to try to fix solve a problem with your
15:30
cache files or you know what i'm saying
15:32
that that would require a cleanup and
15:34
then it obviously allows you to clean up
15:36
those files
15:38
folders directories
15:40
by just clicking on apply or scheduling
15:42
it adios