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df command in Linux with Examples
Name
df - report file system disk space usage.
Synopsis
df [OPTION]... [FILE]...
Options
-a, –all includes pseudo, duplicate and inaccessible file systems. -B, –block-size=SIZE scales sizes by SIZE before printing them. -h, –human-readable print sizes in power of 1024 -H, –si print sizes in power of 1000 -i, –inodes list inode information instead of block usage -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 POSIX output format –sync invoke sync before getting usage info –total elide all entries insignificant to available space, and produce grand total -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 --help display this help and exit --version output version information and exit
Description
df is a strong built-in utility of linux which is used to display the amount of disk space available on the file system containing each file name argument. It can be used to show the free space on a Unix or Linux computer and to understand the filesystems that have been mounted. It supports showing usage in Bytes, Megabytes and Gigabytes. It also support including and excluding certain filesystem types from the output.
The disk space can be viewed by using df command. This will print a table of information to standard output. This can be useful to discover the amount of free space available on a system or filesystems.
Each line includes the following columns:
- “Filesystem” - The name of the filesystem.
- “1K-blocks” - The size of the filesystem in 1K blocks.
- “Used” - The used space in 1K blocks.
- “Available” - The available space in 1K blocks.
- “Use%” - The percentage of used space.
- “Mounted on” the directory on which the filesystem is mounted.
Examples
1. If we use df command without any option then, it would display the space available on all currently mounted file systems. By default, the df command shows the disk space in 1-kilobyte blocks and the size of used and available disk space in kilobytes.
$ df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on udev 3985296 0 3985296 0% /dev tmpfs 801844 2128 799716 1% /run /dev/sda2 47799020 30241148 15100068 67% / tmpfs 4009204 77288 3931916 2% /dev/shm tmpfs 5120 4 5116 1% /run/lock tmpfs 4009204 0 4009204 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/loop0 384 384 0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/539 /dev/loop1 26368 26368 0 100% /snap/heroku/3960 /dev/loop5 9344 9344 0 100% /snap/canonical-livepatch/95 /dev/loop4 9344 9344 0 100% /snap/canonical-livepatch/94 /dev/loop6 2304 2304 0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/145 /dev/loop12 261760 261760 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/33 /dev/loop13 384 384 0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/550 /dev/loop22 261760 261760 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/36 /dev/loop19 99328 99328 0 100% /snap/core/9665 /dev/loop20 165376 165376 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/128
2. To display information about disk drives in human-readable format (kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes and so on), use -h option along with the df command.
$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on udev 3.9G 0 3.9G 0% /dev tmpfs 784M 2.1M 781M 1% /run /dev/sda2 46G 29G 15G 67% / tmpfs 3.9G 80M 3.8G 3% /dev/shm tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock tmpfs 3.9G 0 3.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup ...
3. If you want to display all the file system, use -a option.
$ df -a Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on sysfs 0 0 0 - /sys proc 0 0 0 - /proc udev 3985296 0 3985296 0% /dev devpts 0 0 0 - /dev/pts tmpfs 801844 2140 799704 1% /run /dev/sda2 47799020 30241172 15100044 67% / securityfs 0 0 0 - /sys/kernel/security tmpfs 4009204 141040 3868164 4% /dev/shm tmpfs 5120 4 5116 1% /run/lock tmpfs 4009204 0 4009204 0% /sys/fs/cgroup cgroup 0 0 0 - /sys/fs/cgroup/unified cgroup 0 0 0 - /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd pstore 0 0 0 - /sys/fs/pstore cgroup 0 0 0 - /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio cgroup 0 0 0 - /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb cgroup 0 0 0 - /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio ...
4. To display information of only device like, /home file system in human readable format use the following command.
$ df -h /home Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda5 142G 106G 29G 79% /home
5. To print the information of filesystem type of a given device, use -T option along with -h option.
$ df -hT /dev/sda5 Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda5 ext4 142G 106G 29G 79% /home
6. To display information of file system in kilo-bytes use the -k option.
$ df -k Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on udev 3985296 0 3985296 0% /dev tmpfs 801844 2132 799712 1% /run /dev/sda2 47799020 30241168 15100048 67% / tmpfs 4009204 154988 3854216 4% /dev/shm tmpfs 5120 4 5116 1% /run/lock tmpfs 4009204 0 4009204 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/loop0 384 384 0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/539 /dev/loop1 26368 26368 0 100% /snap/heroku/3960 /dev/loop5 9344 9344 0 100% /snap/canonical-livepatch/95 /dev/loop4 9344 9344 0 100% /snap/canonical-livepatch/94 /dev/loop6 2304 2304 0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/145 /dev/loop7 1024 1024 0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/93 /dev/loop8 1024 1024 0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/100 /dev/loop11 56192 56192 0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1502 /dev/loop9 170496 170496 0 100% /snap/postman/119 /dev/loop10 56704 56704 0 100% /snap/core18/1885
7. Similarly, we can display information of file system in Megabytes by using the -m option.
$ df -m Filesystem 1M-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on udev 3878 0 3878 0% /dev tmpfs 782 78 704 10% /run /dev/sda2 74968 15269 55869 22% / tmpfs 3908 20 3889 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 5 1 5 1% /run/lock tmpfs 3908 0 3908 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/sda3 234550 2625 219989 2% /var /dev/sda5 144531 108058 29109 79% /home tmpfs 782 1 782 1% /run/user/1000
8. We can use -i option to display the File System's Inodes. It displays the information of number of used inodes and their percentage for the file system.
$ df -i Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on udev 996324 592 995732 1% /dev tmpfs 1002301 1175 1001126 1% /run /dev/sda2 3055616 237129 2818487 8% / tmpfs 1002301 162 1002139 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 1002301 6 1002295 1% /run/lock tmpfs 1002301 18 1002283 1% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/loop0 230 230 0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/539 /dev/loop1 28237 28237 0 100% /snap/heroku/3960 /dev/loop5 34 34 0 100% /snap/canonical-livepatch/95 /dev/loop4 34 34 0 100% /snap/canonical-livepatch/94 /dev/loop6 784 784 0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/145 /dev/loop7 353 353 0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/93 /dev/loop8 355 355 0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/100
9. Use -t option to display file system information of particular type of file system. For example, to display filesystem information for ext4 file system types.
$ df -t ext4 Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda2 76766240 13230328 59613276 19% / /dev/sda5 147999168 81044276 59413852 58% /home /dev/sda3 240178696 9241920 218713340 5% /var
10. Use --total option in df command to display the grand total of disk usage of all the file system.
$ df --total Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on udev 3985296 0 3985296 0% /dev tmpfs 801844 2132 799712 1% /run /dev/sda2 47799020 30241228 15099988 67% / tmpfs 4009204 132936 3876268 4% /dev/shm tmpfs 5120 4 5116 1% /run/lock tmpfs 4009204 0 4009204 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/loop0 384 384 0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/539 /dev/loop1 26368 26368 0 100% /snap/heroku/3960 /dev/loop5 9344 9344 0 100% /snap/canonical-livepatch/95 /dev/loop4 9344 9344 0 100% /snap/canonical-livepatch/94 /dev/loop6 2304 2304 0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/145 /dev/loop7 1024 1024 0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/93 /dev/loop8 1024 1024 0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/100 /dev/loop11 56192 56192 0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1502 /dev/loop9 170496 170496 0 100% /snap/postman/119 /dev/loop10 56704 56704 0 100% /snap/core18/1885 /dev/loop12 261760 261760 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/33 /dev/loop13 384 384 0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/550 /dev/loop14 56320 56320 0 100% /snap/core18/1880 /dev/loop15 2304 2304 0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/148 /dev/loop16 164096 164096 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/116 /dev/loop17 2560 2560 0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/748 /dev/loop21 2560 2560 0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/730 /dev/loop18 63616 63616 0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1506 /dev/loop22 261760 261760 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/36 /dev/loop19 99328 99328 0 100% /snap/core/9665 /dev/loop20 165376 165376 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/128 /dev/loop23 26368 26368 0 100% /snap/heroku/3962 /dev/sda3 19091540 160768 17937904 1% /boot /dev/sda5 47799020 3128052 42213164 7% /usr/local /dev/sda4 575691856 283071664 263306912 52% /home tmpfs 801840 28 801812 1% /run/user/121 tmpfs 801840 68 801772 1% /run/user/1000 /dev/loop24 170496 170496 0 100% /snap/postman/120 /dev/loop2 98944 98944 0 100% /snap/core/9804 /dev/sdb 15737824 8388656 7349168 54% /media/rajat/p total 722242664 326834592 360186316 48% -
11. To exclude particular type of file system information from the listing of df command, use --exclude or --exclude-type option
$ df --exclude-type=tmpfs --exclude-type=squashfs -T Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on udev devtmpfs 3970520 0 3970520 0% /dev /dev/sda2 ext4 76766240 13230328 59613276 19% / /dev/sda5 ext4 147999168 81044308 59413820 58% /home /dev/sda3 ext4 240178696 9242512 218712748 5% /var
$ df --exclude=tmpfs --exclude=squashfs -T Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on udev devtmpfs 3970520 0 3970520 0% /dev /dev/sda2 ext4 76766240 13230328 59613276 19% / /dev/sda5 ext4 147999168 81044308 59413820 58% /home /dev/sda3 ext4 240178696 9242512 218712748 5% /var
12. To display the disk usage information on the hard disk having ext4 filing system
$ df -t ext4 --total -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda2 74G 13G 57G 19% / /dev/sda5 142G 78G 57G 58% /home /dev/sda3 230G 8.9G 209G 5% /var total 444G 99G 323G 24% -
13. To control the output fields in df command use option --output=FIELD_LIST. FIELD_LIST is a comma separated list of columns to be included in the output of df command. Valid field names in the FIELD_LIST are listed below.
‘source’ The source of the mount point, usually a device. ‘fstype’ File system type. ‘itotal’ Total number of inodes. ‘iused’ Number of used inodes. ‘iavail’ Number of available inodes. ‘ipcent’ Percentage of IUSED divided by ITOTAL. ‘size’ Total number of blocks. ‘used’ Number of used blocks. ‘avail’ Number of available blocks. ‘pcent’ Percentage of USED divided by SIZE. ‘file’ The file name if specified on the command line. ‘target’ The mount point.
$ df --output=source,size,used,avail,fstype Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Type udev 3970520 0 3970520 devtmpfs tmpfs 800212 79696 720516 tmpfs /dev/sda2 76766240 13230328 59613276 ext4 tmpfs 4001048 86332 3914716 tmpfs tmpfs 5120 4 5116 tmpfs tmpfs 4001048 0 4001048 tmpfs /dev/sda5 147999168 81044160 59413968 ext4 /dev/sda3 240178696 9243600 218711660 ext4