How to check disk usage with du

Published 2025-10-20 14:24:39 UTC

The `du` command helps you estimate and summarize the disk space used by files and directories.

To view disk usage of a folder with human-readable sizes:

du -cha <DIRECTORY>

The `-c` flag adds a total at the end `-h` makes sizes human-readable, and `-a` shows all files, not just directories. You can combine it with `sort -h` to see which files or directories consume the most space:

du -cha <DIRECTORY> | sort -h

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