Linux Command - du

The Linux du command is used to show the disk space usage of files and directories. It doesn’t follow symbolic links by default.

Most common and useful commands:

Show sizes for all files and dirs in current dir in human readable format and sort numerically by human readable format:

du -sh *

sort -h

Human readable total usage for each file and dir in current dir:

du -sh *

Other useful examples:

Recursively check usage of dirs in current directory:

du

Human readable total for current dir:

du -sh

Only 2 levels deep:

du -d 2

Show sizes for all files and dirs in current dir in k and sort numerically:

du -sk *

sort -n

Common arguments:

-a	all files not just dirs
-c	show total
-s	summarize, just show total
-d	levels deep
-h	human readable
-k	units in k
-m	units in m
-L	follow all symbolic links
–time	show modification times
-x	skip dirs on other file systems