Tutorial

How to Find the Largest Folders on Steam Deck

Find the largest files and folders on your Steam Deck using either the Konsole or a computer via SSH.

Method 1: On Steam Deck

The first method is to use your Steam Deck to check for the largest folder.

1. Open Konsole

2. Find Largest Folders

To find the largest folders on your Steam Deck, write the following in your Konsole window:

du -a -h /home/deck/ | sort -h -r | head -n 20

You will now get a list of the 20 largest folders inside the path /home/deck/, which is the home folder of the default user on the Steam Deck, simply called deck. If you want to search your entire Steam Deck then use a slash — / — and nothing else as path.

Method 2: From a Computer

There is actually a way to check the largest folders on your Steam Deck from a computer. This method involves activating SSH on your Steam Deck and then using a SSH client like puTTy to access it.

1. Activate SSH

Follow our guide to Activate SSH on Steam Deck to make sure you're able to connect from a computer.

2. Connect to Steam Deck

Open up your SSH client of choice — for Windows users it's most likely puTTy — and connect to the Steam Deck with this command:

ssh deck@192.168.0.22

Please note that your own IP address is probably not the same as my IP address. Follow the guide above to find the IP address of your Steam Deck.

3. Check for Largest Folders

The command sent in puTTy (or any SSH client) is the same as on the Steam Deck itself:

du -a -h /home/deck/ | sort -h -r | head -n 20

Command Explanations

The command used combines three Linux utilities — du, sort, and head — to find and display the largest files/directories in the /home/deck/Games/ directory. Let me break down each part:

du

du (disk usage) displays file and directory sizes:

  • -a: Shows all files, not just directories (otherwise, du would only show directories)
  • -h: "Human-readable" format, displaying sizes with units like K (kilobytes), M (megabytes), G (gigabytes)
  • /home/deck/: The path to analyze

This outputs lines showing the size and path of each file and directory.

sort

The pipe (|) sends the du output to sort:

  • -h: Sort by human-readable sizes (understands units like K, M, G)
  • -r: Reverse the order, showing largest sizes first (descending order)

This final pipe sends the sorted data to head:

  • -n 20: Show only the first 20 lines of output