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Bug 155791 - Size of folders should be size of folder's content.
Size of folders should be size of folder's content.
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Product: nautilus
Classification: Core
Component: Views: List View
2.9.x
Other All
: Normal enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: Nautilus Maintainers
Nautilus Maintainers
: 592122 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2004-10-19 06:32 UTC by J.B. Nicholson
Modified: 2018-12-27 22:17 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description J.B. Nicholson 2004-10-19 06:32:53 UTC
It would be nice if I could get the size of a folder in terms of kilobytes,
megabytes, gigabytes, and so on, not just the number of items in the folder.  I
often don't care about how many items are in the folder.  I more often care
about how much storage space the folder is taking up.

This is related to, but not the same as, bug 130066.
Comment 1 Sebastien Bacher 2004-10-20 19:11:28 UTC
where do you have the size of the folder ? 'The contents' field of properties
should display the number of elements and the size ...
Comment 2 J.B. Nicholson 2004-10-30 17:44:50 UTC
I'm talking about list mode (as opposed to icon mode, image preview mode, etc.).
 I would like to see disk space usage in this mode, not number of items in the
folder.

I think this information would help people know what to delete when they're
trying to move stuff around or free up disk space.  Getting this information
from the properties window requires many mouse clicks and is not easily sorted
into ascending or descending order.
Comment 3 Sebastien Bacher 2005-01-04 23:31:29 UTC
ok, confirmed. 
Comment 4 Jeremiah Poling 2005-11-26 04:28:03 UTC
Forgive me if this is inappropriate, but I just ran into this issue and I wanted
to add a "me too."

I really am liking the direction that nautilus is going wrt acting more like the
mac finder, and I think this would be a very welcome addition!

Thanks.
Jeremiah
Comment 5 Christian Neumair 2005-11-26 07:47:20 UTC
The tricky thing is probably that it has to be done recursively, and thus causes
much disk access, which is probably bad for laptops.
Comment 6 Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) 2006-06-25 01:28:03 UTC
That problem would be handled by the existing "Count number of items:" menu, though it would need to be renamed to "Calculate folder sizes:" and perhaps default to "Never".
Comment 7 Anshul Khandelwal 2009-06-02 21:02:15 UTC
This is about three years old now.  Just wanted to add that this is a feature I too would like to see.
Comment 8 A. Walton 2009-08-17 21:04:01 UTC
*** Bug 592122 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 as.gentoo 2009-09-07 22:41:29 UTC
Same here. Would be really nice if it had a high priority.

Isn't there a way to integrate baobab (which kind of does what we want) into nautilus?
Comment 10 Yann 2009-11-26 16:39:57 UTC
Would enjoy this feature too. As it may use more ressource than the current "item number", I see 2 possibilities:
- it could be enabled via an option (in Nautilus Preferences)
- it could be enabled by default, but using a size limit in order to limit disk access (for example: display "More than 100Mio" if the folder size is more than 100Mio ), and this size limit could be chosen by the user in the Preferences menu.
Comment 11 William Jon McCann 2012-08-30 00:42:55 UTC
While I agree it migh be nice, I'm not sure it is vital for being able to identify a folder. The list view is primarily for finding information. Once you find it you can determine the properties of the item.

Sorting files by size is important for finding because it can help identify them. It is pretty typical to think files as having a size in "megabytes". I don't think it is as common to think of folders as having a size in those units but rather in the number of items within.

Apart from that there are technical concerns that make this basically a non-starter.

Given the fact that this may not be technically possible and that there is little in return in terms of user experience I'm going to close this until someone can step up with a working implementation.