Handy du commands in Linux

Transfering files between servers and making sure directory sizes match has lead me down a path of exploring the du command in detail – heres some helpful commands I’ve been using to list directory sizes. I’ve been using ubuntu but should work in debian etc too.

To list all top level directories

du -h -d 1

To list all directories that match a directory name

du -hsc Name*

this one lists top level where directory name stars with Name and the wildcard * at the end – Name, NameOne, NameTwo etc

Another handy feature is adding sort in reverse order with human readable sizes by piping the output into the sort command

du -hsc Name* | sort -hr

also watching the directory sizes whilst transferring files is helpful!

watch -n 10 du -h -d 1

where the -n 10 is the amount of seconds between refreshes