Linux du command – estimate file space usage
Linux du command recursively summarizes the disk usage of a file or directory.
Syntax
du [OPTION]... [FILE]...
Options
- -0, –null
end each output line with NUL, not newline - -a, –all
write counts for all files, not just directories - -B, –block-size=SIZE
scale sizes by SIZE before printing them; e.g., ‘-BM’ prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes; see SIZE format below - -b, –bytes
equivalent to ‘–apparent-size –block-size=1’ - -c, –total
produce a grand total - -D, –dereference-args
dereference only symlinks that are listed on the command line - -d, –max-depth=N
print the total for a directory (or file, with –all) only if it is N or fewer levels below the command line argument;
–max-depth=0 is the same as –summarize - -H
equivalent to –dereference-args (-D) - -h, –human-readable
print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G) - –inodes
list inode usage information instead of block usage - -k
like –block-size=1K - -L, –dereference
dereference all symbolic links - -l, –count-links
count sizes many times if hard linked - -m
like –block-size=1M - -P, –no-dereference
don’t follow any symbolic links (this is the default) - -S, –separate-dirs
for directories do not include size of subdirectories - –si
like -h, but use powers of 1000 not 1024 - -s, –summarize
display only a total for each argument - -t, –threshold=SIZE
exclude entries smaller than SIZE if positive, or entries greater than SIZE if negative - -X, –exclude-from=FILE
exclude files that match any pattern in FILE - –exclude=PATTERN
exclude files that match PATTERN - -x, –one-file-system
skip directories on different file systems
Examples & Use Cases
Show the space used by a directory or file
In the following example, we use the du -aBK option to display the disk space used by all directories and files in the current directory.
➜ du -aBK
Show file disk space usage
In the following example, we use the df -sh option to display disk space usage of a single file.
➜ du -sh install.sh