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How To Find Arch Linux Packages Using the Most Disk Space
Keeping an Arch system lean is part of its appeal, but over time, packages, cached files, and dependencies can quietly eat up disk space. Knowing which Arch packages are taking the largest disk space helps you decide what to remove, compress, or move elsewhere.
This guide walks through practical ways to identify space-heavy packages on Arch Linux (and Arch-based distros like Manjaro and EndeavourOS) without assuming you’re a command-line expert.
What “Largest Packages” Really Means on Arch
When people say “largest packages” on Arch, they might actually be talking about three different things:
Installed package size
How much disk space a package (and its files) currently uses under /usr, /opt, etc.Uncompressed package contents
How big a package becomes once installed, compared to the compressed .pkg.tar.zst file in the cache.Package cache size
Old package versions stored in /var/cache/pacman/pkg, which can be huge even if the installed package is not.
Different tools show different aspects of this. Understanding that distinction helps you interpret what you’re seeing:
| Type of size | Where it lives | Typical tool |
|---|---|---|
| Installed files size | /usr, /opt, etc. | pacman -Qi, pacgraph, du |
| Compressed package size | /var/cache/pacman/pkg | ls, du, ncdu |
| Total cache size (all pkgs) | /var/cache/pacman/pkg | du, paccache, ncdu |
Most people asking this question want the installed package size, but it’s useful to check all three, because they reveal different disk hogs.
Quick Way: List Largest Installed Packages with pacman
Arch’s package manager, pacman, can show package sizes, but it doesn’t have a built-in “sort by size” view. You can combine it with basic shell tools to get a ranked list.
Show top N largest installed packages
You can use this pattern to list packages by installed size: