SYNC(1)

📦
version 9.10 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

hey bestie 💅 welcome to sync(1) — yes that's the manual name, and yes this tiny command is doing the absolute most for your data. sit with me, we're gonna go through the whole thing, no skips, no cap.

✨ NAME ✨

sync — Synchronize cached writes to persistent storage 💾🫶

like. it takes everything your system was just thinking about writing and makes it actually real on disk. main character energy fr fr.

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

sync [OPTION] [FILE]...

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so the whole vibe of this one: Synchronize cached writes to persistent storage. that's it, that's the job. iconic. 👑

if you give it one or more files, then it only syncs those, or the file systems that contain them. so you can be picky about it, love that for you.

  • -d, --data — sync only file data, no unneeded metadata. like, we're keeping it cute and minimal bestie, only the data gets the spotlight 💫
  • -f, --file-system — sync the file systems that contain the files. not the files themselves, their whole entire neighbourhood 🏘️
  • --help — display this help and exit. your little "wait what do I do" moment, answered immediately 🎀
  • --version — output version information and exit. proof of identity, she's showing her ID at the door 💅

💀 BUGS 💀

NOT ME HAVING TO SAY THIS BUT: Persistence guarantees vary per system. 😭 so like, "it's definitely on disk now" is not a promise the universe makes on every machine. see the system calls below for more details. that's not me being shady, that's just literally what it says. 🫶

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Written by Jim Meyering and Giuseppe Scrivano. legends, respectfully. 🌟

🙈 REPORTING BUGS 🙈

found something cursed? tell the people. not me, the people:

translation bugs too, they want ALL the feedback, the multilingual slay 🌈

🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

sibling energy, go read these next:

Full documentation at https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/sync, or available locally via:

info '(coreutils) sync invocation'
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. ⚠️ (yes capital letters, they mean it, no take-backsies.)

and that's the whole page, bestie. 🎀 this was GNU coreutils 9.10, dated August 2026, answering to the name SYNC(1). go forth and flush responsibly 💖✨🦋🍓

📦 where this page comes from