Find Out How Much Space A Directory Is Using On Linux / Unix

Sometimes it’s useful to be able to find out how much disk space a directory is taking. While there are some web interfaces or desktop applications that allows you to do that, it’s always useful to know how it can be done through a command shell.

The DU Command

To find out how much space is being used, you can use the DU (Disk Usage) command. Here a few examples of the DU command usage.

Listing a disk space summary of directory

# du -sh [directory]

Listing the disk space used for a directory and its subdirectories, sorted by disk usage

# du -h [directory] | sort -rn

Take note that the “h” switch allows displays the disk usage in human readable format (ie. kylobytes, megabytes, etc.).