Check total directory size from Ubuntu command line

On Ubuntu, you can easily view the total size of a directory or folder from the command line tools in the terminal. And the good thing is that you don’t need a special GUI app for this. This can be displayed with the du command. du is a short form of disk usage. This article explains how to check the size of a specific folder and all folders on your system from the Terminal application.

Linux Du command:

Find the specific folder size in the terminal.

The basic syntax is

du -hs /folderpath

-h: Human-readable number.
-s: summary only.
-c: Total
-h: human-numeric-sort
-r: reverse

Example:

du -hs /home/manikandan/Downloads

Where manikandan is my username that can be changed with the ubuntu username. The download folder size details are displayed.

Use this command if you want to get the size of a folder and everything else in that folder individually.

du -h /home/manikandan/Downloads

You can also sort by size using the sort options.

du -sch /home/manikandan/Downloads/* | sort -rh

Show all folders and file sizes:

Run this command to display the size of all folders and files system wide.Note: It scans and displays all files and folders from your system and takes some time to complete.