Disk Usage - report the amount of disk space used by the specified files and for each subdirectory.
Syntax
du [options]... [file]...
With no arguments, 'du' reports the disk space for the current directory. Normally the disk space is printed in units of 1024 bytes, but this can be overridden
Options
-a
--all
Show counts for all files, not just directories.
-b
--bytes
Print sizes in bytes, overriding the default block size.
-c
--total
Print a grand total of all arguments after all arguments have been processed.
This can be used to find out the total disk usage of a given set of files or directories.
-D
--dereference-args
Dereference symbolic links that are command line arguments. Does not affect other symbolic links.
This helps to find the disk usage of directories, such as '/usr/tmp', which are often symbolic links.
-h
--human-readable
Append a size letter such as 'M' for megabytes to each size.
Powers of 1024 are used, not 1000; 'M' stands for 1,048,576 bytes.
Use the '-H' or '--si' option if you prefer powers of 1000.
-H
--si
Display size with a non-standard suffix as follows:
B=Byte, K=kilobyte, M=megabyte, G=gigabyte, T=teraByte and P=petabyte.
Powers of 1000 are used, not 1024; so 'M' stands for 1,000,000 bytes.
Use the '-h' or '--human-readable' option if you prefer powers of 1024.
-k
--kilobytes
Print sizes in 1024-byte blocks, overriding the default block size.
-l
--count-links
Count the size of all files, even if they have appeared already (as a hard link).
-L
--dereference
Dereference symbolic links (show the disk space used by the file or directory that
the link points to instead of the space used by the link).
--max-depth=MAX_DEPTH
Show the total for each directory (and file if -all) that is at most MAX_DEPTH levels
down from the root of the hierarchy. The root is at level 0, so 'du --max-depth=0'
is equivalent to 'du -s'.
-m
--megabytes
Print sizes in megabyte (that is, 1,048,576-byte) blocks.
-s
--summarize
Display only a total for each argument.
-S
--separate-dirs
Report the size of each directory separately, not including the sizes of subdirectories.
-x
--one-file-system
Skip directories that are on different filesystems from the one that the argument being processed is on.
--exclude=PAT
When recursing, skip subdirectories or files matching PAT.
For example, 'du --exclude='*.o'' excludes files whose names end in '.o'.
-X FILE
--exclude-from=FILE
Like '--exclude', except take the patterns to exclude from FILE, one per line.
If FILE is '-', take the patterns from standard input.
On BSD systems, 'du' reports sizes that are half the correct values for files that are NFS-mounted from HP-UX systems. On HP-UX systems, it reports sizes that are twice the correct values for files that are NFS-mounted from BSD systems. This is due to a flaw in HP-UX; it also affects the HP-UX 'du' program.
List the total files sizes for everything 1 directory (or less) below the currrent directory ( . )
[simon@testserver]$ du -hc --max-depth=1 .
400M ./data1
1.0G ./data2
1.3G .
1.3G total
List the 10 largest subdirectories in the current directory:
du -hs */ | sort -hr | head
Display the 10 largest subdirectories of the current folder, each with its human redable size:
du -k * | sort -nr | cut -f2 | xargs -d '\n' du -sh | head -n 10
Display folder sizes, to a depth of 2, starting from the home directory (~):
du -ch --max-depth=2 ~
“Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died” ~ Erma Bombeck
ls - List information about files.
Equivalent Windows command:
DIRUSE - resource kit utility to show size of multiple subfolders.