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📛 NAME

ls - list directory contents

🚀 Quick Reference

Use Case	Command	Description
List all files (including hidden)	ls -a	Show entries starting with . 📁
Long format (permissions, owner, size)	ls -l	Detailed listing 📋
Human-readable sizes	ls -lh	Show sizes like 1K, 234M 👀
List all files, long format	ls -la	All files, detailed 📁📋
Sort by modification time, newest first	ls -lt	Newest files at top 🕒
Reverse order	ls -ltr	Oldest first, newest last 🔄
Recursive listing	ls -R	Include subdirectories 📁🔁
One file per line	ls -1	Simple list, no columns 1️⃣
Classify files with indicators	ls -F	Append */=>@| to entries 🏷️
Sort by file size	ls -S	Largest first ⬆️
Sort by extension	ls -X	Group by extension 📎
Show inode numbers	ls -i	Print index number of each file 🔢
List directories only, not contents	ls -d */	Show directories themselves 📂

📝 SYNOPSIS

ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...

📖 DESCRIPTION

List information about the FILEs (the current directory by default). Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is specified.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

🔧 OPTIONS

• -a, --all — do not ignore entries starting with . 📁 (show hidden files)
• -A, --almost-all — do not list implied . and .. 📁🚫 (exclude . and ..)
• --author — with -l, print the author of each file ✍️
• -b, --escape — print C-style escapes for nongraphic characters 📝
• --block-size=SIZE — with -l, scale sizes by SIZE when printing them; e.g., '--block-size=M'; see SIZE format below 📏
• -B, --ignore-backups — do not list implied entries ending with ~ 🔙 (ignore backup files)
• -c — with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last modification of file status information); with -l: show ctime and sort by name; otherwise: sort by ctime, newest first ⏱️
• -C — list entries by columns 🗂️
• --color[=WHEN] — colorize the output; WHEN can be 'always' (default if omitted), 'auto', or 'never'; more info below 🎨
• -d, --directory — list directories themselves, not their contents 📂
• -D, --dired — generate output designed for Emacs' dired mode 🖥️
• -f — do not sort, enable -aU, disable -ls --color 🔀
• -F, --classify — append indicator (one of */=>@|) to entries 🏷️
• --file-type — likewise, except do not append '*' 🏷️
• --format=WORD — across -x, commas -m, horizontal -x, long -l, single-column -1, verbose -l, vertical -C 📐
• --full-time — like -l --time-style=full-iso 🕒
• -g — like -l, but do not list owner 👤🚫
• --group-directories-first — group directories before files; can be augmented with a --sort option, but any use of --sort=none (-U) disables grouping 📁⬆️
• -G, --no-group — in a long listing, don't print group names 👥🚫
• -h, --human-readable — with -l and -s, print sizes like 1K 234M 2G etc. 👀
• --si — likewise, but use powers of 1000 not 1024 📏
• -H, --dereference-command-line — follow symbolic links listed on the command line 🔗
• --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir — follow each command line symbolic link that points to a directory 🔗📂
• --hide=PATTERN — do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN (overridden by -a or -A) 🙈
• --hyperlink[=WHEN] — hyperlink file names; WHEN can be 'always' (default if omitted), 'auto', or 'never' 🔗
• --indicator-style=WORD — append indicator with style WORD to entry names: none (default), slash (-p), file-type (--file-type), classify (-F) 🏷️
• -i, --inode — print the index number of each file 🔢
• -I, --ignore=PATTERN — do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN 🙈
• -k, --kibibytes — default to 1024-byte blocks for disk usage; used only with -s and per directory totals 📏
• -l — use a long listing format 📋
• -L, --dereference — when showing file information for a symbolic link, show information for the file the link references rather than for the link itself 🔗
• -m — fill width with a comma separated list of entries 💬
• -n, --numeric-uid-gid — like -l, but list numeric user and group IDs 🔢
• -N, --literal — print entry names without quoting 📝
• -o — like -l, but do not list group information 👥🚫
• -p, --indicator-style=slash — append / indicator to directories 📁/
• -q, --hide-control-chars — print ? instead of nongraphic characters ❓
• --show-control-chars — show nongraphic characters as-is (the default, unless program is 'ls' and output is a terminal) 📝
• -Q, --quote-name — enclose entry names in double quotes 💬
• --quoting-style=WORD — use quoting style WORD for entry names: literal, locale, shell, shell-always, shell-escape, shell-escape-always, c, escape (overrides QUOTING_STYLE environment variable) 💬
• -r, --reverse — reverse order while sorting 🔄
• -R, --recursive — list subdirectories recursively 📁🔁
• -s, --size — print the allocated size of each file, in blocks 📏
• -S — sort by file size, largest first ⬆️
• --sort=WORD — sort by WORD instead of name: none (-U), size (-S), time (-t), version (-v), extension (-X) 🔢
• --time=WORD — change the default of using modification times; access time (-u): atime, access, use; change time (-c): ctime, status; birth time: birth, creation; with -l, WORD determines which time to show; with --sort=time, sort by WORD (newest first) 🕒
• --time-style=TIME_STYLE — time/date format with -l; see TIME_STYLE below 🕒
• -t — sort by time, newest first; see --time 🕒
• -T, --tabsize=COLS — assume tab stops at each COLS instead of 8 📐
• -u — with -lt: sort by, and show, access time; with -l: show access time and sort by name; otherwise: sort by access time, newest first 👁️
• -U — do not sort; list entries in directory order ⚡
• -v — natural sort of (version) numbers within text 🔢
• -w, --width=COLS — set output width to COLS. 0 means no limit 📏
• -x — list entries by lines instead of by columns ↔️
• -X — sort alphabetically by entry extension 📎
• -Z, --context — print any security context of each file 🛡️
• -1 — list one file per line. Avoid '\n' with -q or -b 1️⃣
• --help — display this help and exit ❓
• --version — output version information and exit 🏷️

💾 SIZE argument

The SIZE argument is an integer and optional unit (example: 10K is 10*1024). Units are K,M,G,T,P,E,Z,Y (powers of 1024) or KB,MB,... (powers of 1000). Binary prefixes can be used, too: KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on.

🕒 TIME_STYLE

The TIME_STYLE argument can be full-iso, long-iso, iso, locale, or +FORMAT. FORMAT is interpreted like in date(1). If FORMAT is FORMAT1<newline>FORMAT2, then FORMAT1 applies to non-recent files and FORMAT2 to recent files. TIME_STYLE prefixed with 'posix-' takes effect only outside the POSIX locale. Also the TIME_STYLE environment variable sets the default style to use.

🎨 Color output

Using color to distinguish file types is disabled both by default and with --color=never. With --color=auto, ls emits color codes only when standard output is connected to a terminal. The LS_COLORS environment variable can change the settings. Use the dircolors command to set it.

🚪 Exit Codes

• 0 — Success ✅ (everything OK)
• 1 — Minor problems (e.g., cannot access subdirectory) ⚠️
• 2 — Serious trouble (e.g., cannot access command-line argument) ❌

👤 AUTHOR

Written by Richard M. Stallman and David MacKenzie.

🐞 REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

©️ COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

📚 SEE ALSO

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/ls>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) ls invocation'

📛 NAME 🚀 Quick Reference 📝 SYNOPSIS 📖 DESCRIPTION 🔧 OPTIONS 🚪 Exit Codes 👤 AUTHOR 🐞 REPORTING BUGS ©️ COPYRIGHT 📚 SEE ALSO