The syntax consists of 2 fields, one is the field where you enter options (which we will look into in the next section) and the other is the path, where usually you enter \u201c\/home\/<username>\u201d to check the whole disk space the user is using. You can also enter any other path to see the disk space used by that directory and corresponding subdirectories.<\/p>\n
Options used with Linux du command<\/h3>\n
The du command is available with a couple of options. Just like almost every command in Linux, options help us specify the way the command must work and also how the output must be formatted. Let us look at the options used with the du command<\/p>\n
1. -a<\/h4>\n
This option lists the sizes of all the files and directories. You can also write this option as \u201c–all\u201d<\/p>\n
2. -h<\/h4>\n
This option shows the information in human-readable format. You can also write this option as \u201c–human-readable\u201d<\/p>\n
3. -c<\/h4>\n
This option displays the grand total in the output. You can also write this option as \u201c–total\u201d<\/p>\n
4. -L<\/h4>\n
This option dereferences all the symbolic links<\/p>\n
5. –apparent-size<\/h4>\n
This option prints apparent sizes instead of disk usage.<\/p>\n
6. -B<\/h4>\n
This option scales size by the specified amount before printing them. You can also write this option as \u201c–block-size\u201d<\/p>\n
7. -b<\/h4>\n
This option is an alias for the commands \u201c–apparent-size –block-size=1\u201d. Therefore, instead of using 2 lengthy options, you can just use \u201c-b\u201d.<\/p>\n
8. –files0-from=<file><\/h4>\n
This option summarizes disk usage of the null-terminated filenames specified in the file you entered.<\/p>\n
9. -H<\/h4>\n
This option is an alias of the option \u201c–dereference-args\u201d. Therefore this option is exactly the same as \u201c-D\u201d.<\/p>\n
10. –si<\/h4>\n
This option is similar to the option \u201c-h\u201d but uses a power of 1000 and not 1024.<\/p>\n
11. -l<\/h4>\n
This option counts the sizes many times if it is not hard-linked.<\/p>\n
12. -0<\/h4>\n
This option ends each output line with 0byte instead of a new line. You can also write this option as \u201c–null\u201d<\/p>\n
13. -P<\/h4>\n
This option does not follow any symbolic links. This option is already used by default. You can also write this option as \u201c–no-dereference\u201d<\/p>\n
14. -S<\/h4>\n
This does not include the sizes of the subdirectories. You can also write this option as \u201c–separate -dirs\u201d<\/p>\n
15. -s<\/h4>\n
This option displays only a total for each argument. You can also write this option as \u201c–summarize\u201d<\/p>\n
16. -x<\/h4>\n
This option skips the directories on different file systems. You can also write this option as \u201c–one-file-system\u201d<\/p>\n
17. -X<\/h4>\n
This option excludes files that match the pattern you specify in a file. You can also write this option as \u201c–exclude-from\u201d<\/p>\n
18. –exclude<\/h4>\n
This option excludes files that match the pattern you specify.<\/p>\n
19. -d<\/h4>\n
This option prints the total for a directory if and only if it is less than or equal to the level you specified. You can also write this option as \u201c–max-depth\u201d.<\/p>\n
20. –time<\/h4>\n
This option shows the time of the last modification of any file in the directory or any of its subdirectories.<\/p>\n
21. –time=word<\/h4>\n
This option shows the time as \u201cword\u201d instead of modification time: atime, access, use, ctime, or status.<\/p>\n
22. –time-style=style<\/h4>\n
This option shows the time in the specified styles, you can choose from full-iso, long-iso, iso or +FORMAT<\/p>\n
23. –version<\/h4>\n
This option displays the information about the version of du you are using.<\/p>\n
This option displays the help menu as follows:<\/p>\n Now that we have laid down the fundamentals, let us look at some of the practical commands in the terminal<\/p>\n If you want to display the size of every single file and directory in your system, simply use the option \u201c-a\u201d with the du command.<\/p>\n If you want to print only the size of specific files, maybe like a specific directory or files related to a specific user, you can specify the path you want du to check. For example, if I want all the file sizes related to the user \u201cgopikiran\u201d on my system, I use the command \u201cch \/home\/gopikiran\u201d<\/p>\n If I want only a specific directory that is deep inside the filesystem, I can specify that y giving the path of the directory, starting from the root (\/) directory.<\/p>\n In the above outputs, we have absolutely no idea in what format or what the sizes even mean. To show the sizes in human-readable format, we use the option \u201c-h\u201d, now the sizes will be printed in bytes, kilobytes (K), Megabytes (M), Gigabytes (G), and so on.<\/p>\n To print out only the grand total size of a specific directory, use the option \u201c-s\u201d along with the du command as shown:<\/p>\n This command prints the size of the directory in quantity no human would understand, therefore to print it in human-readable format, make use of the option \u201c-h\u201d as follows:<\/p>\n Printing the sizes of files and directories in human-readable format is nice and all, but do you know that we can force du to print sizes in a specific quantity? Yup, we can make du print the sizes in all one quantity: either Kilobytes or megabytes or Gigabytes and so on.<\/p>\n We can do so by using the option \u201c-m\u201d for megabytes, option \u201c-k\u201d for kilobytes, option \u201c-g\u201d for gigabytes, and so on.<\/p>\n We have seen that the option \u201c-s\u201d prints only the grand total of a directory, but we can also print the grand total at the end after listing the sizes of all the files and subdirectories of the specified directory.<\/p>\n To get a human-readable output from the option \u201c-c\u201d, pair it with the option \u201c-h\u201d as shown:<\/p>\n To exclude specific files, that is to not print the sizes of specific files, we can use the option \u201c–exclude\u201d. For example, the command \u201cdu -ah –exclude \u201c*.txt\u201d <directory path>\u201d will print the size of all the files and subdirectories in the specified directory in human-readable format excluding all the \u2018.txt\u2019 files in it.<\/p>\n To display the modification time of the files and subdirectories use the option \u201c–time\u201d. For example, the command \u201cdu -ah –time <path>\u201d will print the size of all the files in the specified directories in human-readable![\"version](\"https:\/\/data-flair.training\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/version-of-du-command.webp\")
<\/a><\/p>\n24. \u2013help<\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nPrinting size of everything in the computer<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nPrinting size of a specific directory<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nPrinting sizes in human-readable format<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nFinding the grand total size of a directory<\/h3>\n
du -s <directory path<\/pre>\n
<\/a><\/p>\ndu -sh <directory path><\/pre>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nPrinting sizes in specific human-readable quantities<\/h3>\n
Printing grand total size in the last line<\/h3>\n
du -ch <directory path><\/pre>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nExcluding files<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nDisplaying modified time<\/h3>\n
\nformat and also displays the time of modification.<\/p>\n