Large Files

File storage and bandwidth are often the largest hosting costs, especially on sites that publish scanned records, reports and video. The Large files report lists the biggest files on the site, what uses each one, and copies stored twice.

It is a report only. It never moves or deletes anything.

Where to find it

Reports » Drupal Cleanup » Large files (/admin/reports/drupal-cleanup/files), with the Administer Drupal Cleanup permission. It lists files of 5 MB or more by default; add ?min=50 to the address to change that. From the command line:

drush cleanup:files drush cleanup:files --min-size=50 drush cleanup:files --all --format=csv

What it checks

Every file at or above the size in the public and private file folders, largest first. Generated and internal files are skipped: CSS and JavaScript aggregates, compiled templates, image-style derivatives (see the unused configuration report for those) and Drupal Cleanup's own backups. For each file it reports:

• whether Drupal tracks it (as a managed file) and, if so, what uses it;
• whether it is the site logo or favicon in the theme settings;
• for files nothing tracks or uses, whether stored text or link fields link to it, matched on its address. Imported documents are often linked from body text without Drupal tracking them;
• whether it is a byte-for-byte copy of another large file.

The summary at the top shows the total size of the files listed, and how much of it is unused, untracked or duplicated: a quick estimate of what could be saved.

Government sites

Large files on government sites are often records: scanned originals, published reports, recordings. Being unused on the website doesn't make a file disposable, so check it against your records schedule before removing anything. For files that must be kept but don't need to be on the web server, moving them to cheaper archival storage is often the better saving.