disk-checker/README.md

disk-checker

Fast Ubuntu-friendly CLI for scanning folders, checking file sizes, hashing the first chunk of same-size files, and reporting possible duplicates plus symlinks, hard links, special files, and scan errors.

Install Rust on Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y build-essential curl
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source "$HOME/.cargo/env"

Build

cargo build --release

The binary will be at:

target/release/disk-checker

Usage

Scan the current directory:

disk-checker

Scan one or more paths:

disk-checker ~/Downloads /mnt/shared

Use JSON for scripts:

disk-checker ~/Downloads --json

Hash a larger first chunk before grouping possible duplicates:

disk-checker ~/Downloads --hash-bytes 8MiB

Follow symlinks while still reporting them separately:

disk-checker ~/Downloads --follow-links

Verify possible duplicates with a full-file hash pass:

disk-checker ~/Downloads --verify-full

Limit scanning and hashing workers:

disk-checker ~/Downloads --threads 4

Notes

• By default, duplicate results are possible duplicates: same file size plus same first 1MiB BLAKE3 hash.
• This is intentionally fast because it avoids reading whole files unless you pass --verify-full.
• Symlinks are not followed by default to avoid surprises and cycles.
• Hard link groups are reported separately because they are multiple paths to the same inode, not extra disk copies.
• Hidden files and gitignored files are included; this is a disk scanner, not a source-code search tool.