FileZilla Makes A Good *Nix File Manager

To get to my email and do some of the file management for my web site, I still use a shell account (if you've just said "Huh? Whazzat?" you're free to stop here and go to the next entry) (it's a Command Line User Interface (CLUI) access to a *Nix account) (think of it like Windows CMD command box) (still with me?) , and, because of the way I work, files accumulate.

I'm not a Unix maven by any means. I'm an end user. I've been using Unix as a command-line user since 1983, included a "Enough Unix to Survive" chapter in my 1993 Internet book, The Internet Guide For New Users, but there's a lot I never learned or don't remember.

In particular, ways to look for files, and disk usage by size. There's du and some other command I don't remember at the moment, but sorting by size, and then sub-shelling to use rm (which, of course, I've aliased to include the dash-i option, to avoid accidentally blowing away way too much stuff).

But pruning out older, unneeded files via the command line is time-consuming.

On my Windows machines, it's easy; Windows Explorer lets me click-sort files by size.

Fortunately, I've found a way to do this on my shell account, without even adding a new tool. I've been using the free FileZilla as my Windows FTP client, which displays filename, date, and size for the shell account as well as on my Windows box. And, it turns out, FileZilla has Explorer-like abilities at both ends to rename and even delete files.

So now all I have to do is click on the FileZilla date or size column, select what should go, and press Delete. Another problem solved!