The du command estimate file space usage and summarize disk usage of each FILE, recursively for directories.
It displays the file system block usage for each file argument and for each directory in the file hierarchy rooted in each direc tory argument. If no file is specified it will use current directory.
But why use du command?
You must be wondering why I’m throwing out a light on du command. du is commonly used by system administrators to automate monitoring and notification programs that help prevent directories from becoming full.
du command Examples
Type du to display usage in current directory :
$ du
Pass -h option to display output in Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte and Petabyte (Human-readable output)
$ du -h
Display the name and size of each png file in the /ramdisk/figs/ directory as well as a total for all of the pngs:
$ du -hc /ramdisk/figs/*.png
Another useful option is -c which produce a grand total:
$ du -c
Show the disk usage of the /home/vivek subdirectory:
$ du /home/vivek
Show only a summary of the disk usage of the /home/vivek
$ du -hs /home/vivek
Exclude files that match PATTERN. For example do not count *.obj or *.jpg files:
$ du -h --exclude='*.obj' $ du -h --exclude='*.jpg'
A PATTERN is a shell pattern (not a regular perl or other expression). The pattern ? matches any one character, whereas * matches any string.
Pipes and filters with du
Now display everything sorted by filesize:
$ du -sk .[A-z]* *| sort -n
Display screenful output at a time as du generate more output than can fit on the console / screen:
$ du -h | less
To find top 3 directories, enter :
$ cd /chroot
$ du -sk * | sort -nr | head -3
4620348 var 651972 home 27896 usr 21384 lib64
Working without du
Finally here is one liner (without du command) that prints top 10 filesize in Mb (thanks to dreyser for submitting idea):
# find /var -type f | xargs ls -s | sort -rn | awk '{size=$1/1024; printf("%dMb %s\n", size,$2);}' | head
Output:
31Mb /var/crash/_usr_lib_firefox_firefox-bin.1000.crash 22Mb /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.20-16-generic_2.6.20-16.28_i386.deb 16Mb /var/lib/apt/lists/in.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_feisty_universe_binary-i386_Packages 15Mb /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-restricted-modules-2.6.20-16-generic_2.6.20.5-16.28_i386.deb 9Mb /var/cache/apt/srcpkgcache.bin 9Mb /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin 8Mb /var/cache/apt/archives/firefox_2.0.0.4+1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb 7Mb /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-headers-2.6.20-16_2.6.20-16.28_i386.deb 5Mb /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_feisty_main_binary-i386_Packages 5Mb /var/lib/apt/lists/in.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_feisty_universe_source_Sources
A note about GUI tools
You can use GUI tools for finding the sizes of files and directory trees. Just right click on file name and then select Properties from the popup menu.
This is good for new users but it doesn’t provide scripting facility and fine-gain reporting option that du give us.
More on du command…
- Why command df and du reports different output?
- How do I find the largest top 10 files and directories on a Linux / UNIX / BSD filesystem?
🐧 12 comments so far... add one ↓
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Correction on the exclude. It should read:
$ du -h –exclude=’*.obj’
$ du -h –exclude=’*.jpg’
Excellent article on du usage, and yes thanks to dreyser for the one-liner.
Penguin,
Thanks for the heads up!
I use a very similar findTop10, but I let find to the printing.
find . -xdev -printf '%s %pn' |sort -nr| head -10Scoot,
Nice and dirty hack. Thanks for sharing with us!
ls -Slh|head
is there a du for debian. apt-get install du is always end with Couldn’t find package. Is the tool a piece of other package?
du is installed by default and it is part of package called coreutils. Try apt-get install coreutils
Is it possible to filter “du -sh /home” output, not to show the full path (and just the space occupied)?
Example:
$ du -sh /home
8,5G /home/
I need only the “8,5G” part of the output. How to do this?
Try
du -sh /home/ | awk '{ print $1}'Thank you very much, vivek.
You tip works!
A simpler way to show directory space usage (can be inserted into a script, added to $PATH and then run from any location)
Example:
$du -hs | cut -f1
And in a script:
#!/bin/bash
dh -hs | cut -f1
You save this with the name dsu in, let’s say, /usr/bin then
chmod +x dsu
and presto, you have a directory space usage command which you can run from anywhere in the system. Not much but hope it helps.
Does any one know or experienced the output of “du -csh” mismatched with grand total ?
For ex: du -csh *
10M File_A
14M Dir_A
22M total
but expectation is 24 MB as total.