How to See Free Disk Space on Linux

The Linux operating system uses the "df" command to show the amount of free disk space available. The output shows each filesystem on its own line. You will see the name of the filesystem, the complete size of the disk, the amount that is used, the amount that is available, the percentage of the disk in use and where the filesystem is mounted.

Instructions

1. Open a terminal window. The terminal window is usually found under the "Utilities," "Accessories" or "System Tools" sub-menu of the main "Applications" menu, depending on your distribution.

2. Type the command "df -h" to view the amount of free disk space. The "-h" option tells the command to show the amount of free space in "human readable" form. The following lines show an example of what the output will look like:

   Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

   /dev/sda1 141G 89G 45G 67% /

   udev 1.4G 256K 1.4G 1% /dev

   none 1.4G 524K 1.4G 1% /dev/shm

   none 1.4G 332K 1.4G 1% /var/run

   none 1.4G 0 1.4G 0% /var/lock

   none 1.4G 0 1.4G 0% /lib/init/rw

3. Type the command "exit" to close the terminal window.

References

• Computer Hope: Linux / Unix df Command