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du

The du utility is used to inspect the file space usage for a given file or directory.

This is a must-know tool for debugging storage issues.

Usage

Basic syntax for du: 

du [OPTS] [FILE]

A common invocation is: 

du -h ./directory
This will show, in "-human-readable" format, the total space that the directory and all its contents take up on the disk.

Another great invocation: 

du -chx --max-depth=1 "$PWD"
This shows the total space used by the current directory, and itemizes all immediate subdirectories (with a max depth of 1).

  • -c: Show the total disk space usage.
  • -h: Human-readable format (e.g., 5.0G/3.1M/14K).
  • -x: Skips directories on different filesystems.
  • --max-depth=1: Do not recurse subdirectories lower than 1 level.

Options

Each option for du modifies the output and behavior.

Most common ones:

  • -h: Output in human-readable format (base 1024)
  • --exclude=pattern: Exclude any files or directories that pattern matches the name of.
  • -c: Show a total disk space usage at the end of the output.
  • -s: Display only the total size for each file or directory specified.
  • -0: Delimit output with NUL bytes instead of newlines.
  • --inodes: Show inode usage info instead of block usage.

Full list: man du