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    Command Linux
    Home - man page - DU

    DU

    WillieBy WillieFebruary 19, 2026Updated:February 19, 2026No Comments3 Mins Read
     

    NAME

    du – estimate file space usage  

    SYNOPSIS

    du [OPTION]… [FILE]…
    du [OPTION]… –files0-from=F  

    DESCRIPTION

    Summarize disk usage of each FILE, recursively for directories.

    Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

    -0, –null
    end each output line with NUL, not 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
    –help
    display this help and exit
    –version
    output version information and exit

    Display values are in units of the first available SIZE from –block-size, and the DU_BLOCK_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE and BLOCKSIZE environment variables. Otherwise, units default to 1024 bytes (or 512 if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set).

    The SIZE argument is an integer and optional unit (example: 10K is 10*1024). Units are K,M,G,T,P,E,Z,Y (powers of 1024) or KB,MB,… (powers of 1000).  

    PATTERNS

    PATTERN is a shell pattern (not a regular expression). The pattern ? matches any one character, whereas * matches any string (composed of zero, one or multiple characters). For example, *.o will match any files whose names end in .o. Therefore, the command
    du –exclude=’*.o’

    will skip all files and subdirectories ending in .o (including the file .o itself).  

    AUTHOR

    Written by Torbjorn Granlund, David MacKenzie, Paul Eggert, and Jim Meyering.  

    REPORTING BUGS

    GNU coreutils online help: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
    Report du translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>  

    COPYRIGHT

    Copyright © 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
    This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  

    Willie
    • Website

    Willie has over 15 years of experience in Linux system administration and DevOps. After managing infrastructure for startups and enterprises alike, he founded Command Linux to share the practical knowledge he wished he had when starting out. He oversees content strategy and contributes guides on server management, automation, and security.

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