{"id":76983,"date":"2023-07-12T14:04:17","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T12:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jotelulu.com\/en-gb\/blog\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T15:16:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T14:16:31","slug":"files-sorted-size-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jotelulu.com\/en-gb\/blog\/files-sorted-size-linux\/","title":{"rendered":"How to display files sorted by size using a GNU\/Linux script"},"content":{"rendered":"

Discover how to show files sorted by size in GNU\/Linux<\/strong> using a simple one-liner script you can reuse whenever needed.<\/p>\n

This command helps identify the largest files<\/strong> in a filesystem that’s running out of space, so you can purge or relocate<\/strong> unnecessary files to free up space and prevent disk full conditions that could crash your system.<\/p>\n

Since we’re in the GNU\/Linux world<\/strong>, we’ll use native commands available on any system<\/strong>\u2014no scripting languages like Python or Perl required.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How to show files sorted by size using GNU\/Linux commands<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The one-liner command is:<\/p>\n

# du -a | sort -n -r | less<\/code><\/pre>\n
This combines du<\/code> and sort<\/code><\/strong> commands with pipes (pipelines) to process the output step by step.<\/p>\n
du<\/code> (Disk Usage)<\/strong> is a standard UNIX\/Linux command for checking disk space usage. Its basic structure is:<\/p>\n
# du [options] [file\/system]<\/code><\/pre>\n
du<\/code> recursively scans the file structure, summing up space used by each file. The -a<\/code><\/strong> flag includes all files<\/strong>, not just directories.<\/p>\n
NOTE:<\/strong> For more on du<\/code>, see the manual page: du(1) – Linux manual page<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
The du -a<\/code> output pipes to sort -n -r<\/code><\/strong>:<\/p>\n