How to check the file size and directory size on Linux

1. Using ‘du -sh’ command

Syntax

du -sh file/directory name

Example

Find the size of the file.

[root@no1010211066225 git-dir]# du -sh calculate_files.py 
4.0K	calculate_files.py

Find the size of the directory.

[root@mac git-dir]# du -sh someDocs
2.9M	someDocs

Find the size of all files in a dictionary.

[root@mac git-dir]# du -sh scripts/*
4.0K	scripts/bastionhost_eips.json
8.0K	scripts/create_bastion.rb

2. Using ‘stat’ command

Syntax

stat filename

Examples

[root@nmac git-dir]# stat workflow.py
  File: ‘workflow.py’
  Size: 43000     	Blocks: 88         IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: fd01h/64769d	Inode: 1058286     Links: 1
Access: (0755/-rwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Context: unconfined_u:object_r:admin_home_t:s0
Access: 2020-09-23 08:33:54.299246431 +0000
Modify: 2020-09-03 05:42:45.113104679 +0000
Change: 2020-09-03 05:42:45.113104679 +0000
 Birth: -

Note:- stat command doesn’t show the content size of the directory. Its sizes remain fixed. This is not the size of the contents of the directory.

3. Using ‘ls -l’ command

Syntax

ls -l filename

Examples

[root@mac git-dir]# ls -l workflow.py 
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 43000 Sep  3 05:42 workflow.py

Note:- In the above command’s output, 43000 is the size of the file in bytes.

[root@mac git-dir] ls -lh workflow.py 
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 42K Sep  3 05:42 workflow.py

Note:- In the above command’s output, 42k is the size of the file in Kilobytes. It’s a more friendly output.

file

size