How do I get the size of a directory on the command line?

Question

How do I get the size of a directory on the command line?

I tried to obtain the size of a directory (containing directories and subdirectories) by using the ls command with option l. It seems to work for files (ls -l file name), but if I try to get the size of a directory (for instance, ls -l /home), I get only 4096 bytes, although altogether it is much bigger.

disk-usage ls command-line

4 years ago by vishaljlf39

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**rahul07** · Answer 1 · 2021-07-15T12:32:09

The du command shows the disk usage of the file.

The -h option shows results in human-readable form (e.g., 4k, 5M, 3G).

du -h (file name)

**rahul07** · Answer 2 · 2021-07-15T12:32:10

The du command shows the disk usage of the file.

The -h option shows results in human-readable form (e.g., 4k, 5M, 3G).

du -h (file name)

**sandhya6gczb** · Answer 3 · 2021-07-16T13:23:40

For the total size of a directory jump into it and run:



du -hs



du -h --max-depth=1 | sort -hr

which will give you the size of all sub-folders (level 1). The output will be sorted (largest folder on top).

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How do I get the size of a directory on the command line?

3 Answers

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