[19.10] / space exhaustation when running BleachBit as root?

Support & Help Requests
#1

Running a regular user session on TTY7, I just launched BleachBit (As root) from the UM Menu.

After clicking on "PREVIEW" it listed me a bunch of stuff it needed to get rid of and when pressing "CLEAN" it started doing it's stuff.

Now my question to you is this: is it normal that on a 256Gbs drive (with half empty) that when BB does it's cleaning phase that it will FULLY fill up the remaining 112GBs I have left (when the space to clean really is set to 500MBs)??

I guess this happens via the wiping/zero writing process? But even so, what would justify a ~500megs space to hug well over 100 GBs of free space?

Worst of all, doesn't that affect system stability for the time / is full?

Thanks in advance,

#2

What filesystem are you using on /

#3

EXT4

/dev/mapper/ubuntu--mate--vg-root ext4 233G 98G 123G 45% /

#4

I see. Yes apparently it is normal:
https://www.bleachbit.org/forum/bleachbit-occupies-entire-free-disk-space-when-cleaning

1 Like
#5

Yep. It's definitely the case of zero wiping each time you use BleachBit, which is more suited for securely erasing traditional platter hard drives if it's a privacy concern.

:warning: A word of warning - if your system is on a SSD, this would add wear and tear to the SSD's write lifespan as they use trimming to automatically discard old data.

#6

As usual: a big thank you to all who have helped making me a more educated person.

<3