[#]: collector: (lujun9972) [#]: translator: (lnrCoder) [#]: reviewer: ( ) [#]: publisher: ( ) [#]: url: ( ) [#]: subject: (How to Get the Size of a Directory in Linux) [#]: via: (https://www.2daygeek.com/find-get-size-of-directory-folder-linux-disk-usage-du-command/) [#]: author: (Magesh Maruthamuthu https://www.2daygeek.com/author/magesh/) How to Get the Size of a Directory in Linux ====== You may have noticed that the size of a directory is showing only 4KB when you use the **[ls command][1]** to list the directory content in Linux. Is this the right size? If not, what is it, and how to get a directory or folder size in Linux? This is the default size, which is used to store the meta information of the directory on the disk. There are some applications on Linux to **[get the actual size of a directory][2]**. But the disk usage (du) command is widely used by the Linux administrator. I will show you how to get folder size with various options. ### What’s du Command? **[du command][3]** stands for `Disk Usage`. It’s a standard Unix program which used to estimate file space usage in present working directory. It summarize disk usage recursively to get a directory and its sub-directory size. As I said, the directory size only shows 4KB when you use the ls command. See the below output. ``` $ ls -lh | grep ^d drwxr-xr-x 3 daygeek daygeek 4.0K Aug 2 13:57 Bank_Details drwxr-xr-x 2 daygeek daygeek 4.0K Mar 15 2019 daygeek drwxr-xr-x 6 daygeek daygeek 4.0K Feb 16 2019 drive-2daygeek drwxr-xr-x 13 daygeek daygeek 4.0K Jan 6 2019 drive-mageshm drwxr-xr-x 15 daygeek daygeek 4.0K Sep 29 21:32 Thanu_Photos ``` ### 1) How to Check Only the Size of the Parent Directory on Linux Use the below du command format to get the total size of a given directory. In this example, we are going to get the total size of the **“/home/daygeek/Documents”** directory. ``` $ du -hs /home/daygeek/Documents or $ du -h --max-depth=0 /home/daygeek/Documents/ 20G /home/daygeek/Documents ``` **Details**: * du – It is a command * h – Print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G) * s – Display only a total for each argument * –max-depth=N – Print levels of directory ### 2) How to Get the Size of Each Directory on Linux Use the below du command format to get the total size of each directory, including sub-directories. In this example, we are going to get the total size of each **“/home/daygeek/Documents”** directory and it’s sub-directories. ``` $ du -h /home/daygeek/Documents/ | sort -rh | head -20 20G /home/daygeek/Documents/ 9.6G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek 6.3G /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos 5.3G /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos/Camera 5.3G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-videos 3.2G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-mageshm 2.3G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-Photos 2.2G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month 916M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-mageshm/Tanisha 454M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-mageshm/2g-backup 415M /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos/WhatsApp Video 300M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Jan-2017 288M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Oct-2017 226M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Sep-2017 219M /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos/WhatsApp Documents 213M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-mageshm/photos 163M /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos/WhatsApp Video/Sent 161M /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos/WhatsApp Images 154M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/June-2017 150M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Nov-2016 ``` ### 3) How to Get a Summary of Each Directory on Linux Use the below du command format to get only the summary for each directory. ``` $ du -hs /home/daygeek/Documents/* | sort -rh | head -10 9.6G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek 6.3G /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos 3.2G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-mageshm 756K /home/daygeek/Documents/Bank_Details 272K /home/daygeek/Documents/user-friendly-zorin-os-15-has-been-released-TouchInterface1.png 172K /home/daygeek/Documents/user-friendly-zorin-os-15-has-been-released-NightLight.png 164K /home/daygeek/Documents/ConfigServer Security and Firewall (csf) Cheat Sheet.pdf 132K /home/daygeek/Documents/user-friendly-zorin-os-15-has-been-released-Todo.png 112K /home/daygeek/Documents/user-friendly-zorin-os-15-has-been-released-ZorinAutoTheme.png 96K /home/daygeek/Documents/distro-info.xlsx ``` ### 4) How to Display the Size of Each Directory and Exclude Sub-Directories on Linux Use the below du command format to display the total size of each directory, excluding subdirectories. ``` $ du -hS /home/daygeek/Documents/ | sort -rh | head -20 5.3G /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos/Camera 5.3G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-videos 2.3G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-Photos 1.5G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-mageshm 831M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-mageshm/Tanisha 454M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-mageshm/2g-backup 300M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Jan-2017 288M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Oct-2017 253M /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos/WhatsApp Video 226M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Sep-2017 219M /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos/WhatsApp Documents 213M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-mageshm/photos 163M /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos/WhatsApp Video/Sent 154M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/June-2017 150M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Nov-2016 127M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Dec-2016 100M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Oct-2016 94M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Nov-2017 92M /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos/WhatsApp Images 90M /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek/Thanu-photos-by-month/Dec-2017 ``` ### 5) How to Get Only the Size of First-Level Sub-Directories on Linux If you want to get the size of the first-level sub-directories, including their subdirectories, for a given directory on Linux, use the command format below. ``` $ du -h --max-depth=1 /home/daygeek/Documents/ 3.2G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-mageshm 4.0K /home/daygeek/Documents/daygeek 756K /home/daygeek/Documents/Bank_Details 9.6G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek 6.3G /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos 20G /home/daygeek/Documents/ ``` ### 6) How to Get Grand Total in the du Command Output If you want to get the grand total in the du Command output, use the below du command format. ``` $ du -hsc /home/daygeek/Documents/* | sort -rh | head -10 20G total 9.6G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-2daygeek 6.3G /home/daygeek/Documents/Thanu_Photos 3.2G /home/daygeek/Documents/drive-mageshm 756K /home/daygeek/Documents/Bank_Details 272K /home/daygeek/Documents/user-friendly-zorin-os-15-has-been-released-TouchInterface1.png 172K /home/daygeek/Documents/user-friendly-zorin-os-15-has-been-released-NightLight.png 164K /home/daygeek/Documents/ConfigServer Security and Firewall (csf) Cheat Sheet.pdf 132K /home/daygeek/Documents/user-friendly-zorin-os-15-has-been-released-Todo.png 112K /home/daygeek/Documents/user-friendly-zorin-os-15-has-been-released-ZorinAutoTheme.png ``` -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- via: https://www.2daygeek.com/find-get-size-of-directory-folder-linux-disk-usage-du-command/ 作者：[Magesh Maruthamuthu][a] 选题：[lujun9972][b] 译者：[lnrCoder](https://github.com/lnrCoder) 校对：[校对者ID](https://github.com/校对者ID) 本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创编译，[Linux中国](https://linux.cn/) 荣誉推出 [a]: https://www.2daygeek.com/author/magesh/ [b]: https://github.com/lujun9972 [1]: https://www.2daygeek.com/linux-unix-ls-command-display-directory-contents/ [2]: https://www.2daygeek.com/how-to-get-find-size-of-directory-folder-linux/ [3]: https://www.2daygeek.com/linux-check-disk-usage-files-directories-size-du-command/