DF(1)

📦
version 9.10 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💾 df — report file system space usage 💾

okay bestie, gather round, because df is literally the main character of "where did all my disk go" and she is here to spill the tea ☕✨

✨ NAME ✨

df — report file system space usage 🫶

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

df [OPTION]... [FILE]...

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

So this page? It's documenting the GNU version of df, not some random off-brand one, okay? no cap.

df shows you the amount of space available on the file system containing each file name argument. Like, you hand her a path, she tells you how much room is left on the drive that path lives on. iconic behavior.

If you give her no file name at all? She shows the space available on all currently mounted file systems. the whole buffet. 🌈

By default, space is shown in 1K blocks — unless the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, in which case 512-byte blocks are used. yes, that one ancient env var is still lurking, she never left 🙈

Okay now the fun niche case: if an argument is the absolute file name of a device node containing a mounted file system, df shows the space available on that file system rather than on the file system containing the device node. Sneaky? A little. Correct? Absolutely. 👑

⚠️ Important lowkey sad disclaimer: this version of df cannot show the space available on unmounted file systems. Why? Because on most kinds of systems, doing so requires non-portable, intimate knowledge of file system structures. She's not being difficult, she just refuses to do something unportable. boundaries. 💀

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

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. (yes literally, the rule applies both ways, that's the law)
  • -a, --all — include pseudo, duplicate, inaccessible file systems. let them all in, no gatekeeping 🫶
  • -B, --block-size=SIZE — scale sizes by SIZE before printing them; see the SIZE format below; E.g., '-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes 🔢
  • -h, --human-readable — print sizes in powers of 1024 (e.g., 1023M) 🌸
  • -H, --si — print sizes in powers of 1000 (e.g., 1.1G) 🌈
  • -i, --inodes — list inode information instead of block usage. different metric, same drama 🦋
  • -k — like --block-size=1K ⭐
  • -l, --local — limit listing to local file systems. stay local, babe 💅
  • --no-sync — do not invoke sync before getting usage info (this is the 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 🔥
  • --total — elide all entries insignificant to available space, and produce a grand total. the receipts, but make it one line 💯
  • -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) 💀 she's just standing there. menacingly. doing literally nothing.
  • --help — display this help and exit 🆘
  • --version — output version information and exit 🏆

🧮 the units situation 🧮

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).

The SIZE argument is an integer and an optional unit — example: 10K is 10*1024. Units are K,M,G,T,P,E,Z,Y,R,Q (powers of 1024) or KB,MB,... (powers of 1000). Binary prefixes can be used, too: KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on. ✨

📋 FIELD_LIST, bestie 📋

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', 'file' and 'target' (see info page). 👑

✍️ AUTHOR ✍️

Written by Torbjorn Granlund, David MacKenzie, and Paul Eggert. legends, all three of them 🫡

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org

GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>

General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

(yes please actually report them, they want to know, fr fr 🙏)

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/df>

or available locally via: info '(coreutils) df invocation'

okay that's the whole thing, you're basically a df scholar now 💜

Packaged by Ubuntu (9.10-1ubuntu2), Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc., License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. 💖

this was GNU coreutils 9.10, August 2026 — mwah, slay, periodt, go check your disk space 🎀✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from