disktree-bin on Omarchy

disktree-bin on Omarchy

disktree is a disk-space treemap built for Omarchy (Rust + GPUI, follows your Omarchy theme) that scans your home directory or whole disk, draws every directory as a nested mosaic sized by what it really costs on disk and colored by kind of data, and lets you mark what should go and then trash or permanently delete it from a two-step review screen.

TL;DR

omarchy pkg add disktree-bin

Launch disktree from the app launcher (or run disktree in a terminal) — it scans your home directory by default. Takes ~2 minutes. The store listing reports an 11.4 MB download / 29 MB installed: this is the prebuilt-binary package of v0.11.0, so you skip the long Rust compile the -bin package exists to avoid.

Getting started (5 minutes)

1. First launch.

Launch disktree from the app launcher (or run disktree in a terminal) and it scans your home directory by default. What you see: a breadcrumb trail from / at the top; below it the scan totals, the current filter, and a legend; the mosaic itself — every directory as a nested tile, sized by real on-disk cost (what du reports), colored by kind of data (code, git checkouts, media, documents, caches, toolchains, synced files), with reclaimable space (caches, build output, package stores) shown with a diagonal hatch; and a side panel with the selection's details, the largest plausibly-removable items ("Worth a look"), what you've marked, and the disk's free space now vs. after your marks.

2. The 3 things you need to know:

• Mark with Space (or X), then review with c. Marking is completely reversible — press Space again to unmark. Nothing happens until you open the review list and commit. There are two commit paths: "Move to trash" (the default when a trash is available; on Linux it tries trash-cli's trash-put, then gio trash, then a built-in XDG trash) and "Delete permanently" (rm -rf semantics, which always asks first in a dialog that names what goes and how much comes back). After a removal, disktree rescans so the on-screen numbers match the disk.
• Scroll to dive in. Scroll toward a directory to magnify toward the pointer, keep scrolling to go into it — one continuous motion. Enter goes into the selected directory at any depth; Backspace or Escape goes up one level; </> (or alt+arrows) go back and forward through the directories you visited. [ and ] draw fewer or more levels; +/- magnify; 0 resets.
• Switch what you measure. Press t to cycle what tile areas and colors mean (Size / Files / Age); d toggles disk usage vs apparent size; i includes or skips hidden entries (included by default — ~/.cache is often the biggest thing in a home); r rescans; v opens the volume picker; g widens to the whole disk; / filters by name; o (or right-click) shows the tile in your file manager.

3. Make it roomy.

Hyprland tiles new windows, so disktree opens into whatever tile it is given — and it's designed for a big window. Float it or give it a rule (per the README):

windowrule = float, class:^(disktree)$
windowrule = size 1400 900, class:^(disktree)$

4. Config location.

The README documents no config file or dotfile — settings (theme choice, saved view choices) are recent feature work in the repo (issues #87/#88, closed) and may or may not be in the packaged 0.11.0. Treat all "settings persist between launches" claims as unverified until confirmed on the box.

Common issues & fixes

The README's Hyprland float rule never matches — the window doesn't float

Issue #11 found the 0.9.1 window mapped with an empty Wayland app_id, so class:^(disktree)$ matched nothing and docks couldn't tie it to its launcher entry. It's fixed upstream (closed), and the README documents class disktree — but it was only seen on 0.9.1, and whether the fix landed in the packaged 0.11.0 build is unverified (issue #11).

Fix: If the rule doesn't match, run hyprctl clients while disktree is open and check its actual class.

"How do I change partitions?" — no obvious way to scan a different disk

A real user asked exactly this (issue #67).

Fix: Press v (or click Volumes beside the disk name in the side panel): the picker lists every mounted volume with its free space, fullest first, skipping pseudo-filesystems and duplicate btrfs/APFS mount points, and selecting one resets the scan root straight to that volume.

Unreadable entries show up when scanning the whole disk

By design. Without root, system directories can't be read, and the README says they're counted as unreadable in the top bar rather than guessed at. The scan still covers one whole volume (mount source, so btrfs subvolumes like /home, /var/log, /var/cache/pacman/pkg are included; /proc, /sys, /run, tmpfs, /boot, other disks, network shares, and snapshot subvolumes are left out — counting snapshots would count the disk twice).

Fix: Don't run disktree as root to "fix" this — its removal rules exist to protect system trees regardless (README: The whole disk).

"Move to trash" vs "Delete permanently" — what actually happens on Linux?

Per the README: trash tries trash-put from trash-cli first, then gio trash, then a built-in XDG trash — the trash commit is direct (recoverable until the trash is emptied). Permanent deletion is rm -rf semantics and always asks first, in a dialog naming what goes and how much space comes back. There are also hard guards: only paths under the scanned root can go, and the filesystem root, the scanned root, your home directory, mount points (or anything containing one), and system trees (/usr, /etc, /boot, /var/lib, /nix/store, Homebrew prefixes) are refused outright — pacman, paccache, or journalctl --vacuum are the tools for those.

Fix: None needed — this is the documented behavior. If you don't know which trash backend is firing on your box, check whether trash-cli is installed; disktree tries it first (README: What it refuses to do).

disktree won't start or draws nothing (e.g., on a VM or odd GPU setup)

The README's install notes require a Wayland or X11 session with a GPU that GPUI can drive (Vulkan), and Rust 1.97+ if you build from source. A headless VM or a GPU-less remote session is a documented prerequisite gap, not a bug in your setup — this hasn't been reproduced and reported on Omarchy specifically, so mark it unverified (README: Install).

Fix: This is a documented prerequisite gap, not a bug: disktree needs a Wayland or X11 session with a Vulkan-capable GPU to draw anything.

Pairs well with / If you hate this, try

Pairs well with

• flea (the Omarchy-native file manager — find the folder in disktree, then o opens it in your file manager; Omarchy App Store), paccache (clean /var/cache/pacman/pkg, which disktree shows but refuses to remove for you), and journalctl --vacuum (same story for /var/log).

If you hate this, try

• ncdu — the classic terminal tree browser (sudo pacman -S ncdu); baobab (GNOME's Disk Usage Analyzer) for a rings-chart view (sudo pacman -S baobab); or filelight for a KDE-style treemap if you're not married to the Omarchy theme.

Comparison: disktree vs ncdu, Baobab & Filelight

Verdict: If you're on Omarchy and want the "what's eating my disk, and let me safely remove it" answer in one graphical window that matches your theme, disktree is the pick; ncdu wins if you live in a terminal or work over SSH.