Total size of the contents of all the files in a directory [closed]

When I use ls or du, I get the amount of disk space each file is occupying.

I need the sum total of all the data in files and subdirectories I would get if I opened each file and counted the bytes. Bonus points if I can get this without opening each file and counting.

Solution 1:

If you want the 'apparent size' (that is the number of bytes in each file), not size taken up by files on the disk, use the -b or --bytes option (if you got a Linux system with GNU coreutils):

% du -sbh <directory>

Solution 2:

Use du -sb:

du -sb DIR

Optionally, add the h option for more user-friendly output:

du -sbh DIR

Solution 3:

cd to directory, then:

du -sh

ftw!

Originally wrote about it here: https://ao.ms/get-the-total-size-of-all-the-files-in-a-directory/

Solution 4:

Just an alternative:

ls -lAR | grep -v '^d' | awk '{total += $5} END {print "Total:", total}'

grep -v '^d' will exclude the directories.

Solution 5:

stat's "%s" format gives you the actual number of bytes in a file.

 find . -type f |
 xargs stat --format=%s |
 awk '{s+=$1} END {print s}'

Feel free to substitute your favourite method for summing numbers.