10 df Commands to Check Space in Linux or Ubuntu

By Raju

April 17, 2017

linux commands

In Linux, you can check disk space using command line tool called df command. The df command stands for Disk File System. Using df command you can find disk space summary information like available and used disk space on Linux.

In this tutorial, we are going to teach you ten different df commands with practical examples to manage disk space on Linux.

Let’s explore df command with all the options so that you will get complete idea on Linux disk space.

The basic syntax for df command is:

df [options] [devices] 

1. Checking File System Disk Space

The “df” command displays the information of file system device names, disk blocks, total disk space used, available disk space, percentage of usage and mount points on a file system.

You could see a similar output on your screen.

root@fwh:~# df
Filesystem     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       10179896 3579164   6060584  38% /
none                   4       0         4   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev             1020812       4   1020808   1% /dev
tmpfs             205016     336    204680   1% /run
none                5120       0      5120   0% /run/lock
none             1025072       0   1025072   0% /run/shm
none              102400       0    102400   0% /run/user

2. Display Disk Space in Human Readable Format

As you see in the first example, the output is difficult to read or understand. By default df command shows disk space information in bytes which is difficult to understand for humans. We can easily understand if the results are in megabytes and gigabytes.

Don’t worry, the good df command has an option to display information in human readable format like in MB and GB. You just need to add -h flag to see.

root@fwh:~# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       9.8G  3.5G  5.8G  38% /
none            4.0K     0  4.0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev            997M  4.0K  997M   1% /dev
tmpfs           201M  336K  200M   1% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none           1002M     0 1002M   0% /run/shm
none            100M     0  100M   0% /run/user

3. Display information of all file systems

If you want to see all file systems including which has zero block sizes, pass parameter -a or -all along with df command. The output would be similar to this.

root@fwh:~# df -a
Filesystem     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       10179896 3579176   6060572  38% /
proc                   0       0         0    - /proc
sysfs                  0       0         0    - /sys
none                   4       0         4   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
none                   0       0         0    - /sys/fs/fuse/connections
none                   0       0         0    - /sys/kernel/debug
none                   0       0         0    - /sys/kernel/security
udev             1020812       4   1020808   1% /dev
devpts                 0       0         0    - /dev/pts
tmpfs             205016     336    204680   1% /run
none                5120       0      5120   0% /run/lock
none             1025072       0   1025072   0% /run/shm
none              102400       0    102400   0% /run/user
none                   0       0         0    - /sys/fs/pstore
systemd                0       0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd

4. Display File System details in Bytes

To display all file system information and usage in 1 K blocks , pass the option ‘-k‘  as follows.

root@fwh:~# df -k
Filesystem     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       10179896 3579188   6060560  38% /
none                   4       0         4   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev             1020812       4   1020808   1% /dev
tmpfs             205016     336    204680   1% /run
none                5120       0      5120   0% /run/lock
none             1025072       0   1025072   0% /run/shm
none              102400       0    102400   0% /run/user

5. Display File System Information in MB

To display all file system information and usage in MB or megabytes  , pass the option ‘-m‘.

root@fwh:~# df -m
Filesystem     1M-blocks  Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1           9942  3496      5919  38% /
none                   1     0         1   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev                 997     1       997   1% /dev
tmpfs                201     1       200   1% /run
none                   5     0         5   0% /run/lock
none                1002     0      1002   0% /run/shm
none                 100     0       100   0% /run/user

6. Display File System Information in GB

To display all file system details and usage in GB or gigabytes  , pass the option ‘-h‘.

root@fwh:~# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       9.8G  3.5G  5.8G  38% /
none            4.0K     0  4.0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev            997M  4.0K  997M   1% /dev
tmpfs           201M  336K  200M   1% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none           1002M     0 1002M   0% /run/shm
none            100M     0  100M   0% /run/user

7. Display /home file system information

You can see only /home file system device infomation by executing below df command.

root@fwh:~# df -h /home
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       9.8G  3.5G  5.8G  38% /

8. Display File System Type in Linux

To see the type of each file system pass the -T option. It gives output with file system types column. You could see the type of each file system listed such as ext4, ext3, tempfs, devtmpfs and etc.

root@fwh:~# df -T
Filesystem     Type     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1      ext4      10179896 3579192   6060556  38% /
none           tmpfs            4       0         4   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev           devtmpfs   1020812       4   1020808   1% /dev
tmpfs          tmpfs       205016     336    204680   1% /run
none           tmpfs         5120       0      5120   0% /run/lock
none           tmpfs      1025072       0   1025072   0% /run/shm
none           tmpfs       102400       0    102400   0% /run/user

9. Include or Exclude only certain File System Types.

If you want to see only ext4 file systems, use df command with option -t

root@fwh:~# df -t ext4
Filesystem     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       10179896 3579280   6060468  38% /

If you want to see all file system types except ext4, then pass -x option and type ( ext3, ext4) to exclude from the output.

root@fwh:~# df -x ext4
Filesystem     1K-blocks  Used Available Use% Mounted on
none                   4     0         4   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev             1020812     4   1020808   1% /dev
tmpfs             205016   336    204680   1% /run
none                5120     0      5120   0% /run/lock
none             1025072     0   1025072   0% /run/shm
none              102400     0    102400   0% /run/user

10. Display df Command Options and Help

You can see all the available options with df command by typing below command.

root@fwh:~# df --help
Usage: df [OPTION]... [FILE]...
Show information about the file system on which each FILE resides,
or all file systems by default.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
-a, --all             include dummy file systems
-B, --block-size=SIZE  scale sizes by SIZE before printing them.  E.g.,
'-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes.
See SIZE format below.
--total           produce a grand total
-h, --human-readable  print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)
-H, --si              likewise, but use powers of 1000 not 1024
-i, --inodes          list inode information instead of block usage
-k                    like --block-size=1K
-l, --local           limit listing to local file systems
--no-sync         do not invoke sync before getting usage info (default)
--output[=FIELD_LIST]  use the output format defined by FIELD_LIST,
or print all fields if FIELD_LIST is omitted.
-P, --portability     use the POSIX output format
--sync            invoke sync before getting usage info
-t, --type=TYPE       limit listing to file systems of type TYPE
-T, --print-type      print file system type
-x, --exclude-type=TYPE   limit listing to file systems not of type TYPE
-v                    (ignored)
--help     display this help and exit
--version  output version information and exit
Display values are in units of the first available SIZE from --block-size,
and the DF_BLOCK_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE and BLOCKSIZE environment variables.
Otherwise, units default to 1024 bytes (or 512 if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set).
SIZE is an integer and optional unit (example: 10M is 10*1024*1024).  Units
are K, M, G, T, P, E, Z, Y (powers of 1024) or KB, MB, ... (powers of 1000).
FIELD_LIST is a comma-separated list of columns to be included.  Valid
field names are: 'source', 'fstype', 'itotal', 'iused', 'iavail', 'ipcent',
'size', 'used', 'avail', 'pcent' and 'target' (see info page).
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