# Du (Unix) > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Du_(Unix) > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Du_(Unix).md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_(Unix) > Source revision: 1336328130 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{lowercase}} {{short description |Shell command for reporting file system storage use}} {{Infobox software | name = du | logo = | screenshot = Du-example-command.gif | screenshot size = | caption = Example screenshot of du in a terminal | author = [Dennis Ritchie](/source/Dennis_Ritchie)
([AT&T Bell Laboratories](/source/AT%26T_Bell_Laboratories)) | developer = Various [open-source](/source/open-source_software) and [commercial](/source/commercial_software) developers | released = {{Start date and age|1971|11|03|df=y}} | latest release version = | latest release date = | programming language = Plan 9, FreeDOS: [C](/source/C_(programming_language)) | operating system = [Unix](/source/Unix), [Unix-like](/source/Unix-like), [Plan 9](/source/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs), [Inferno](/source/Inferno_(operating_system)), [FreeDOS](/source/FreeDOS) | platform = [Cross-platform](/source/Cross-platform) | genre = [Command](/source/Command_(computing)) | license = [coreutils](/source/coreutils): [GPLv3+](/source/GPLv3%2B)
Plan 9: [MIT License](/source/MIT_License)
FreeDOS: [GPLv2](/source/GPLv2) | website = }} '''du''' is a [shell](/source/shell_(computing)) [command](/source/command_(computing)) for reporting the [file system](/source/file_system) storage allocated to [files](/source/computer_file) and [directory tree](/source/directory_tree)s. With no [command-line argument](/source/command-line_argument)s, it reports the space allocated to the [working directory](/source/working_directory) and to each directory tree that it contains, recursively. Space allocated to files is reported if files are specified for inclusion. For a [symbolic link](/source/symbolic_link) file, the size of the link file is reported, not what it links to. Although ''du'' is short for '''''d'''isk '''u'''sage'',{{Cite web|url=https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/about/dennis-m-ritchie/man12.pdf#page=6|title=Unix Programmer's Manual November 3, 1971|access-date=September 22, 2025|archive-date=December 28, 2025|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251228181711/https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/about/dennis-m-ritchie/man12.pdf#page=6|url-status=live}} the command is not limited to [disk storage](/source/disk_storage). It was developed during the long period of time when disk-based storage was the ubiquitous [mass storage](/source/mass_storage) technology. {{code |du}} differs from [df](/source/df_(Unix)) in that {{code |du}} reports size information of file system items whereas {{code |df}} reports [statistics](/source/statistics) about the storage media as a whole. {{code |du}} can report more detailed information, but can take longer to complete when processing many files. Also, since a storage media may have allocated space that is not associated with an accessible file (i.e. file was deleted but space not freed), {{code |df}} might report more allocated space than {{code |du}} if it were used to calculate the space of all files of a media. Also, the minfree setting that allocates data blocks for the file system and the super user processes creates a discrepancy between total blocks and the sum of used and available blocks. The du command first appeared in version 1 of [AT&T UNIX](/source/History_of_Unix). It is specified by the [Single UNIX Specification](/source/Single_UNIX_Specification) (SUS). The implementation in [GNU](/source/GNU) [coreutils](/source/coreutils) was written by Torbjorn Granlund, David MacKenzie, Paul Eggert, and Jim Meyering.{{man|1|du|die.net}} The command is also available for [FreeDOS](/source/FreeDOS).{{Cite web|url=https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/du.html|title=ibiblio.org FreeDOS 1.2 Updates Package -- du (Unix-like)|website=www.ibiblio.org|access-date=2022-07-02|archive-date=2022-07-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220702062503/https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/du.html|url-status=live}} A similar command is available for [Windows](/source/Windows) in [Sysinternals](/source/Sysinternals) by [Mark Russinovich](/source/Mark_Russinovich). ==Use== du accepts any number of parameters that each specify a file by [path](/source/path_(computing)) to specify the starting scope. If none specified, the working directory is used. SUS mandates the following optional options: * {{code|-a}}: In addition to the default output, include information for each non-directory entry * {{code|-c}}: Report the grand total of the storage usage for the specified scope * {{code|-d #}}: The maximum directory tree depth of the scope. Deeper directories are ignored; for example, 0 sums the starting scope directory only and 1 sums the starting scope directory and its subdirectories * {{code|-H}}: Calculate storage usage for link references specified on the command line * {{code|-k}}: Show sizes as multiples of 1024 [byte](/source/byte)s, not 512-byte * {{code|-L}}: Calculate storage usage for link references * {{code|-s}}: Report only the sum of the usage of the starting scope directory, and not that of subdirectories * {{code|-x}}: Only traverse files and directories on which the path argument is specified Some implementations support other options. For example, BSD and GNU support a {{code|-h}} option that selects numbers to be formatted using metric units and [notation](/source/SI_prefix) (e.g. 10 [MB](/source/megabyte)) instead of bytes. ==Examples== Report the storage use for each file and directory tree in [kilobyte](/source/kilobyte)s ({{code|-k}}): $ du -sk * 152304 directoryOne 1856548 directoryTwo Report the storage use in a more [human-readable](/source/human-readable) format ({{code|-h}}: $ du -sh * 149M directoryOne 1.8G directoryTwo Report the storage use of all subdirectories and files including hidden files within the working directory sorted by file size: $ du -sk .[!.]* *| sort -n Report the storage use under in the working directory ({{code|-d 1}}) with a sum total at the end ({{code|-c}}), formatted as human-readable ({{code|-h}}): $ du -d 1 -c -h For the GNU implementation, {{code|--max-depth}} is used instead of {{code|-d}}. Report the storage use under the root directory ({{code|-d 1}}, trailing {{char|/}}) with a sum total at the end ({{code|-c}}), formatted as human-readable ({{code|-h}}) without traversing into other file systems ({{code|-x}}). Useful when /var, /tmp or other directories are on separate storage from the root directory: $ du -d 1 -c -h -x / ==See also== * {{Annotated link|Disk Usage Analyzer}} * {{Annotated link|Filelight}} * {{Annotated link|List of POSIX commands}} * {{Annotated link|ncdu}} ==References== {{Reflist}} ==External links== {{Wikibooks|Guide to Unix|Commands}} * {{man|cu|du|SUS|estimate file space usage}} * {{man|1|du|die.net}} {{Disk space analyzers}} {{Unix commands}} {{Plan 9 commands}} {{Core Utilities commands}} Category:Standard Unix programs Category:Unix SUS2008 utilities Category:Plan 9 commands Category:Inferno (operating system) commands Category:Disk usage analysis software Category:Unix file system-related software --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Du (Unix)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_(Unix)) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_(Unix)?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.