du command in Linux with examples

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In This tutorial ( du command in Linux with examples )we will guide how to use du command in Linux systems.

What is DU command

du command in Linux can be used to check the disk size of files and directories. DU stands for disk usage. You can also check the disk size of the subdirectory with du commands. Summarize disk usage of each FILE, recursively for directories. You can use multiple options/flags with du command and we will show you the same in the below examples.

Options available in `du` command in Linux

Options – Descriptions 

-0, –null
end each output line with 0 byte rather than newline

-a, –all
write counts for all files, not just directories

–apparent-size
print apparent sizes, rather than disk usage; although the apparent size is usually smaller, it may be larger due to holes in (‘sparse’) files, internal fragmentation, indirect blocks, and the
like

-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

–files0-from=F
summarize disk usage of the NUL-terminated file names specified in file F; if F is -, then read names from standard input

-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

–time show time of the last modification of any file in the directory, or any of its subdirectories

–time=WORD
show time as WORD instead of modification time: atime, access, use, ctime or status

–time-style=STYLE
show times using STYLE, which can be: full-iso, long-iso, iso, or +FORMAT; FORMAT is interpreted like in ‘date’

-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

du command in Linux with examples

Command usage examples with options:

`-h` option in `du` command

You can print sizes in human-readable format(K, M, G), using the -h option. print sizes in human-readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)

$ du -h /home
In this example, you can check size of /home directory.

`-a` option in `du` command

You can combine -a and -h flags together to check all files and folder sizes.

$ du -a -h /home

To obtain the disk usage summary for a directory:

$ du -sh /home

Check the timestamp of the last modification of files and directories:

$ du --time -h /home/

apparent-size

print apparent sizes, rather than disk usage; although the apparent size is usually smaller, it may be larger due to holes in (‘sparse’) files, internal fragmentation, indirect blocks, and the like

$ du -sh --apparent-size /home

`-d` option in `du` command

You can print sizes to a particular level, use -d option with the level number.

$ du -d 1 /home/

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have shown you du command in Linux with examples. If you have any questions, Please reach out to us.
You can check out df command example here
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