Useful du (Disk Usage) Commands to Find Disk Usage of Files and Directories

The Linux “du” (Disk Usage) is a standard Unix/Linux command, used to check the information of disk usage of files and directories on a machine.

The du command has many parameter options that can be used to get the results in many formats.

 The du command also displays the files and directory sizes in a recursively manner.

This blog explains 10 useful “du” commands with their examples, that might helps you to find out the sizes of files and directories in Linux. 

The information provided in this blog are taken from the man pages of du command.

1. To find out the disk usage summary of a /home/manish directory tree and each of its sub directories. Enter the command as:

[root@localhost]# du  /home/manish

40      /home/manish/downloads

4       /home/manish/.mozilla/plugins

4       /home/manish/.mozilla/extensions

12      /home/manish/.mozilla

12      /home/manish/.ssh

689112  /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10

689360  /home/manish

The output of the above command displays the number of disk blocks in the /home/manish directory along with its sub-directories.

2. Using “-h” option with “du” command provides results in “Human Readable Format“. Means you can see sizes in Bytes, Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes etc.

[root@localhost]# du -h /home/manish

40K     /home/manish/downloads

4.0K    /home/manish/.mozilla/plugins

4.0K    /home/manish/.mozilla/extensions

12K     /home/manish/.mozilla

12K     /home/manish/.ssh

673M    /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10

674M    /home/manish

3. To get the summary of a grand total disk usage size of an directory use the option “-s” as follows.

[root@localhost]# du -sh /home/manish

674M    /home/manish

4. Using “-a” flag with “du” command displays the disk usage of all the files and directories.

[root@localhost]# du -a /home/manish

4       /home/manish/.bash_logout

12      /home/manish/downloads/uploadprogress-1.0.3.1.tgz

24      /home/manish/downloads/Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2

40      /home/manish/downloads

12      /home/manish/uploadprogress-1.0.3.1.tgz

4       /home/manish/.mozilla/plugins

4       /home/manish/.mozilla/extensions

12      /home/manish/.mozilla

4       /home/manish/.bashrc

689108  /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10/ubuntu-12.10-server-i386.iso

689112  /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10

689360  /home/manish

5. Using “-a” flag along with “-h” displays disk usage of all files and folders in human readeable format. The below output is more easy to understand as it shows the files in Kilobytes, Megabytes etc.

[root@localhost]# du -ah /home/manish

4.0K    /home/manish/.bash_logout

12K     /home/manish/downloads/uploadprogress-1.0.3.1.tgz

24K     /home/manish/downloads/Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2

40K     /home/manish/downloads

12K     /home/manish/uploadprogress-1.0.3.1.tgz

4.0K    /home/manish/.mozilla/plugins

4.0K    /home/manish/.mozilla/extensions

12K     /home/manish/.mozilla

4.0K    /home/manish/.bashrc

673M    /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10/ubuntu-12.10-server-i386.iso

673M    /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10

674M    /home/manish

6. Find out the disk usage of a directory tree with its subtress in Kilobyte blcoks. Use the “-k” (displays size in 1024 bytes units).

[root@localhost]# du -k /home/manish

40      /home/manish/downloads

4       /home/manish/.mozilla/plugins

4       /home/manish/.mozilla/extensions

12      /home/manish/.mozilla

12      /home/manish/.ssh

689112  /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10

689360  /home/manish

7. To get the summary of disk usage of directory tree along with its subtrees in Megabytes (MB) only. Use the option “-mh” as follows. The “-m” flag counts the blocks in MB units and “-h” stands for human readable format.

[root@localhost]# du -mh /home/manish

40K     /home/manish/downloads

4.0K    /home/manish/.mozilla/plugins

4.0K    /home/manish/.mozilla/extensions

12K     /home/manish/.mozilla

12K     /home/manish/.ssh

673M    /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10

674M    /home/manish

8. The “-c” flag provides a grand total usage disk space at the last line. If your directory taken 674MB space, then the last last two line of the output would be.

[root@localhost]# du -ch /home/manish

40K     /home/manish/downloads

4.0K    /home/manish/.mozilla/plugins

4.0K    /home/manish/.mozilla/extensions

12K     /home/manish/.mozilla

12K     /home/manish/.ssh

673M    /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10

674M    /home/manish

674M    total

9. The below command calculates and displays the disk usage of all files and directories, but excludes the files that matches given pattern. The below command excludes the “.txt” files while calculating the total size of diretory. So, this way you can exclude any file formats by using flag “-–exclude“. See the output there is no txtfiles entry.

[root@localhost]# du -ah --exclude="*.txt" /home/manish

4.0K    /home/manish/.bash_logout

12K     /home/manish/downloads/uploadprogress-1.0.3.1.tgz

24K     /home/manish/downloads/Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2

40K     /home/manish/downloads

12K     /home/manish/uploadprogress-1.0.3.1.tgz

4.0K    /home/manish/.bash_history

4.0K    /home/manish/.bash_profile

4.0K    /home/manish/.mozilla/plugins

4.0K    /home/manish/.mozilla/extensions

12K     /home/manish/.mozilla

4.0K    /home/manish/.bashrc

24K     /home/manish/Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2

4.0K    /home/manish/geoipupdate.sh

4.0K    /home/manish/.zshrc

120K    /home/manish/goaccess-0.4.2.tar.gz.1

673M    /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10/ubuntu-12.10-server-i386.iso

673M    /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10

674M    /home/manish

10. Display the disk usage based on modification of time, use the flag “–time” as shown below.

[root@localhost]# du -ha --time /home/manish

4.0K    2012-10-12 22:32        /home/manish/.bash_logout

12K     2013-01-19 18:48        /home/manish/downloads/uploadprogress-1.0.3.1.tgz

24K     2013-01-19 18:48        /home/manish/downloads/Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2

40K     2013-01-19 18:48        /home/manish/downloads

12K     2013-01-19 18:32        /home/manish/uploadprogress-1.0.3.1.tgz

4.0K    2012-10-13 00:11        /home/manish/.bash_history

4.0K    2012-10-12 22:32        /home/manish/.bash_profile

0       2013-01-19 18:32        /home/manish/xyz.txt

0       2013-01-19 18:32        /home/manish/abc.txt

4.0K    2012-10-12 22:32        /home/manish/.mozilla/plugins

4.0K    2012-10-12 22:32        /home/manish/.mozilla/extensions

12K     2012-10-12 22:32        /home/manish/.mozilla

4.0K    2012-10-12 22:32        /home/manish/.bashrc

24K     2013-01-19 18:32        /home/manish/Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2

4.0K    2013-01-19 18:32        /home/manish/geoipupdate.sh

4.0K    2012-10-12 22:32        /home/manish/.zshrc

120K    2013-01-19 18:32        /home/manish/goaccess-0.4.2.tar.gz.1

673M    2013-01-19 18:51        /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10/ubuntu-12.10-server-i386.iso

673M    2013-01-19 18:51        /home/manish/Ubuntu-12.10

674M    2013-01-19 18:52        /home/manish