Quickly find the largest files in a directory

From the Terminal, if you want to quickly find out what the largest files are in a directory, try this variation of the ls command:

ls -lShr

the l flag will display the items in a list, the S flag sorts by size, and h makes it readable in MB/GB (human readable), with r reversing the report order so that the largest file is the last on the list and thus right above the returned command prompt.

If you want the largest file in a directory of a certain type, simply specify the file type with a wildcard to show all files fitting that description:

ls -lShr *.zip

Try it out with any filetype *.mp3 *.mov *.wmv *.psd , etc