I miss the ‘Other Locations’ page in older versions of the Nautilus file manager. It made it easy to see an overview of disk usage across my (many) partitions — so I was pleased to find a GNOME Shell extension that plugs this glanceable stat gap.
But first, some background to explain why I was pleased to (as I’m not here to suggest this is a pressing issue for most people).
My ‘testing laptop’ has a 256GB SSD with multiple OSes installed on it. The Linux partitions have around 35-50GB each. The laptop is not a full-time daily-driver, but my Linux partitions do fill up fast as I install and test software for this blog.
Which is why I like—heck, need—to keep an eye on disk space.
In Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with GNOME 46 that is easy using the ‘Other Locations’ section in Nautilus. A single click, and bam—everything is in view, with in-line stats on remaining space for all mounted partitions:
GNOME retired ‘Other Locations’ panel a few releases back. When I use Ubuntu 25.04 with GNOME 48 on the laptop, I can’t get a clear and concise overview of space-related stats in the same manner.
Now, it is still possible to see disk usage in newer versions of Nautilus. You have to right-click on a folder or mount in the sidebar and select Properties. A modal appears and, following a bit of disk calculation, relevant stats are listed:
Easy!
On very large drives the initial calculation can be slow, which is a bit of a bummer, and it doesn’t auto-update if you leave it open. Being hidden from view also nixes the passive awareness benefits of the old approach.
I like a passive approach (and given my partition sizes are so small, it saves frustration to glean whether a HandBrake conversion is going to fail due to insufficient space).
“Why not just open Disks or Disk Analyser?” you might ask. “Or install a different file manager like Nemo?”. Viable alternatives, but not something I’m used to, and all a little ‘extra’ to my needs.
Which is why I like this Free Space Indicator GNOME Shell extension: it scratches an itch I have.
Disk Space Indicator Extension
Free Space Indicator is a panel-based add-on for GNOME 48 (and that version only at the time of writing). Once installed and enabled, it shows remaining disk space in the top bar for the active mount, and periodically refreshes to ensure the figure is up-to-date.
A concise set of configuration options cater to different needs:
- Show disk free space in the top bar (icon, text, or both)
- Click to open menu showing usage for all mount points
- Choose which mount point to show in top bar
- Selectively hide unwanted mount points
- Choose binary (KiB, MiB, GiB) or decimal (KB, MB, GB) units
- Set a custom update interval
I couldn’t figure out how to get this to report space for external drives too. That would be a neat use case for video editors and developers who work with large projects on a portable SSD, and for whom constant exports and backups can eat up space quickly.
As that isn’t my main use case; as is, it works well enough for me.
If you think this could be useful for you too, try it out!