Disk Usage - report the amount of disk space used by the specified files and for each subdirectory.
Syntax du [options]... [file]...
With no arguments, 'du' reports the disk space for the current directory. Normally the disk space is printed in units of 1024 bytes, but this can be overridden
Options -a --all Show counts for all files, not just directories. -b --bytes Print sizes in bytes, overriding the default block size. -c --total Print a grand total of all arguments after all arguments have been processed. This can be used to find out the total disk usage of a given set of files or directories. -D --dereference-args Dereference symbolic links that are command line arguments. Does not affect other symbolic links. This helps to find the disk usage of directories, such as '/usr/tmp', which are often symbolic links. -h --human-readable Append a size letter such as 'M' for megabytes to each size. Powers of 1024 are used, not 1000; 'M' stands for 1,048,576 bytes. Use the '-H' or '--si' option if you prefer powers of 1000. -H --si Display size with a non-standard suffix as follows: B=Byte, K=kilobyte, M=megabyte, G=gigabyte, T=teraByte and P=petabyte. Powers of 1000 are used, not 1024; so 'M' stands for 1,000,000 bytes. Use the '-h' or '--human-readable' option if you prefer powers of 1024. -k --kilobytes Print sizes in 1024-byte blocks, overriding the default block size. -l --count-links Count the size of all files, even if they have appeared already (as a hard link). -L --dereference Dereference symbolic links (show the disk space used by the file or directory that the link points to instead of the space used by the link). --max-depth=MAX_DEPTH Show the total for each directory (and file if -all) that is at most MAX_DEPTH levels down from the root of the hierarchy. The root is at level 0, so 'du --max-depth=0' is equivalent to 'du -s'. -m --megabytes Print sizes in megabyte (that is, 1,048,576-byte) blocks. -s --summarize Display only a total for each argument. -S --separate-dirs Report the size of each directory separately, not including the sizes of subdirectories. -x --one-file-system Skip directories that are on different filesystems from the one that the argument being processed is on. --exclude=PAT When recursing, skip subdirectories or files matching PAT. For example, 'du --exclude='*.o'' excludes files whose names end in '.o'. -X FILE --exclude-from=FILE Like '--exclude', except take the patterns to exclude from FILE, one per line. If FILE is '-', take the patterns from standard input.
On BSD systems, 'du' reports sizes that are half the correct values for files that are NFS-mounted from HP-UX systems. On HP-UX systems, it reports sizes that are twice the correct values for files that are NFS-mounted from BSD systems. This is due to a flaw in HP-UX; it also affects the HP-UX 'du' program.
List the total files sizes for everything 1 directory (or less) below the currrent directory ( . )
[simon@testserver]$ du -hc --max-depth=1 .
400M ./data1
1.0G ./data2
1.3G .
1.3G total
List the 10 largest subdirectories in the current directory:
du -hs */ | sort -hr | head
Display the 10 largest subdirectories of the current folder, each with its human redable size:
du -k * | sort -nr | cut -f2 | xargs -d '\n' du -sh | head -n 10
Display folder sizes, to a depth of 2, starting from the home directory (~):
du -ch --max-depth=2 ~
"Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died" ~ Erma Bombeck
ls - List information about files.
Equivalent Windows command:
DIRUSE - resource kit utility to show size of multiple subfolders.