33 GB of usage, 177 GB system space occupied - how to find ghost files?

[jayonrails]

@jayonrails said in 33 GB of usage, 177 GB system space occupied - how to find ghost files?:

I remember that some file uploads to the Nextcloud system failed a few months ago and I think these might be still stored somewhere, where the application cannot find it, but still take space.

I was right on this one. I downloaded all the files that are present on the Nextcloud, deleted all the servers on the web interface and then re-synced from my computer. The ghost files are gone, it is now using around the 33 GB as I would have expected it.

Nextcloud is great tool, but sometimes does weird things. This is one example of being weird.

The issue is resolved for now, thanks for your ideas on it.

[jdaviescoates]

@jayonrails good one!

Out of interest I asked ChatGPT where partially uploaded files might be within Nextcloud and the advice it gave was:

• Delete files in /data/<user>/uploads/
• Clear /data/tmp/
• Remove .part files
• Fix database with occ files:scan --all
• Run occ files:cleanup to remove orphaned files

[jdaviescoates]

I facing this issue now too. My users are using about 90GB but Cloudron says it's nearly 160GB (and that's after deleting all my deleted items). I'm struggling to find the 70GB of ghost files so I can remove them!

[jdaviescoates]

🧹 How to Find and Delete Ghost Files in Nextcloud (Cloudron)

If you're seeing way more disk space used than expected in your Nextcloud app (33 GB used but 177 GB occupied etc.), here are some terminal commands you can run inside the app to identify and clean up ghost files, previews, app caches, and more.

To open the terminal:
Cloudron Dashboard → Nextcloud → Terminal (Web Terminal tab)

---

Check Overall Disk Usage

du -sh /app/data

See how much disk space is used by Nextcloud's data directory.

---

List Folder Sizes in /app/data

du -sh /app/data/* | sort -h

This shows usage per user/app folder so you can spot what's bloating.

---

🧼 Clean Common Space Hogs

1. Delete Preview Cache (safe to delete)

rm -rf /app/data/appdata_*/preview/*

You can regenerate them later as needed.

---

2. Delete Old File Versions & Deleted Files

occ versions:cleanup
occ trashbin:expire
occ trashbin:cleanup

If that doesn’t clear enough, nuke them manually:

rm -rf /app/data/*/files_versions/*
rm -rf /app/data/*/files_trashbin/*

---

3. Clear Unused App Data (e.g. SnappyMail)

If you’re not using the built-in SnappyMail app and use external email instead:

rm -rf /app/data/appdata_snappymail

️ Make sure your email is stored elsewhere (e.g. Cloudron mail server) before deleting.

---

Reindex Files After Cleanup

occ files:scan --all

This updates Nextcloud’s file index to reflect the actual files on disk.

---

Disable or Remove Unused Apps

If not using an app, stop it from consuming space:

occ app:disable snappymail
occ app:remove snappymail

---

Bonus: See Per-User File Usage

du -sh /app/data/*/files | sort -h

---

These steps helped me recover over 50 GB of space (from 142 GB → 87 GB) just by clearing previews and unused mail cache. Hopefully they help you too!

Let me know if you spot anything else that tends to grow quietly.

[humptydumpty]

@jdaviescoates said in 33 GB of usage, 177 GB system space occupied - how to find ghost files?:

🧹 How to Find and Delete Ghost Files in Nextcloud (Cloudron)

This should be a stickied post. Thanks for sharing!

[jdaviescoates]

Yeah. @staff I imagine this is quite a common issue - perhaps make it a Guide/ add it to docs?

[james]

Hello @nextcloud users -

Thanks, @jdaviescoates for the great write-up.
Would you like to add this to the https://docs.cloudron.io/guides/community/ section with a PR or should I do this and credit you in the guide?

[jdaviescoates]

@james I'm a bit over stretched at the mo so if you could do it that'd be great, thanks

[jdaviescoates]

said in 33 GB of usage, 177 GB system space occupied - how to find ghost files?:

occ versions:cleanup

My server was filling up again and this command by itself just reduced my personal Nextcloud files space from 140GB to 87GB!

With that in mind I just ran this code in the Web Terminal to automatically bin versions after 30 days:

occ config:app:set files_versions max_age --value="30"

I also did this so versions are kept for at least 7 days too:

occ config:app:set files_versions min_age --value="7"

[humptydumpty]

@jdaviescoates Pure gold! I just cleaned up 30ish GB

I hope setting the max/min age to 30/7 should prevent this from building up anytime soon.