how to find out how big is a directory

xpucto · 10-03-2005, 08:13 AM

Hi!

I would like to know how to check out how big is a directory using the command line. When I use

Code:

ls -lh

, I don´t get the whole stuff but only 4,0k for any directory no matter what is inside.

Thanks for your help.

Xpucto

acid_kewpie · 10-03-2005, 08:16 AM

you want du, Disk Usage i assume... "du -h /some/dir/some/where/"

xpucto · 10-03-2005, 08:19 AM

Well, using du gives me all the file separatly. But I would like to know how big it is in total. If I have 5 files of 5MB each in my /home directory, I would like to get 25MB as a result for "how big is /home".

Xpucto

xpucto · 10-03-2005, 08:26 AM

Oups... sorry, I didn´t see that at the end there is also the sum of all files.

Thanks.

SkyEye · 10-03-2005, 08:36 AM

Yes, alternatively you can use this to get size in MBs or GBs

Code:

du -h <path_of_the_dir> | tail -1

(1 is number one not letter L and replase <path_of_the_dir> with the path of the directory you want)

tkedwards · 10-03-2005, 06:36 PM

Code:

du -sh /directory/

will give the total size of that directory and all files and subfolders within it. See man du.

Emmanuel_uk · 10-04-2005, 01:54 AM

other tools out there: kdirstat and xdu

(I know you said command line, but I am sure if somebody reads this
thread, then they might be interested by alternative solutions)

tkedwards · 10-04-2005, 02:12 AM

Or just right-click->Properties on the folder in KDE if you want the GUI way