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Show directory sizes, refreshing every 2s

Terminal - Show directory sizes, refreshing every 2s
watch 'find -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d |xargs du -csh'
2010-05-19 13:13:57
User: shadycraig
Functions: du watch xargs
0
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Show directory sizes, refreshing every 2s

This command shows the size of directories below here, refreshing every 2s.

It will also track directories created after running the command (that what the find bit does).

Show sample output | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Alternatives

There are 9 alternatives - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

This command is really helpful, but it can be really slow with large directories. Also... this warning appears on this find part of the command..

find: warning: you have specified the -maxdepth option after a non-option argument -type, but options are not positional (-maxdepth affects tests specified before it as well as those specified after it). Please specify options before other arguments.

If you put -type d after the depth options it resolves this warning.

Comment by mitzip 160 weeks and 6 days ago

Also, it doesn't seem to handle directories with spaces. Maybe..

watch 'find -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d | xargs -i du -csh {}'

Comment by mitzip 160 weeks and 6 days ago

I had the same error as you mitzip. To fix, move -type d after the -mindepth -maxdepth arguments. As for your second command, it is not a good idea to have directories or files with spaces. As you can see, it causes problems. It is best use either periods or underscores to represent a space

Comment by evil 160 weeks and 3 days ago

Thanks,

I've now corrected the arguments to find, the error was hidden (by watch?) when I tried it.

mitzip, thanks for the suggestion on dealing with spaces, but I got a subtotal per line when I tried it. I suppose you could switch subtotals off though

watch 'find -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d |xargs -i du -sh {}'
Comment by shadycraig 156 weeks and 1 day ago

Your point of view

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