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How to see the size of a file

The ls command is the default command to see basic file properties, such as its name, ownership, file permissions, and file size. When using the -l the long listing format is used to see the details.

Showing file properties

# ls -l /etc/passwd
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1993 Feb  2  2024 /etc/passwd

When a file is more than a megabyte, it may help to use the --human-readable option. It show the size with a corresponding character (k=kilobyte, m=megabyte, g=gigabyte).

An alternative option is using the stat command. It will provide additional details in its default output, such as the initial creation date and inode.

# stat /etc/passwd
  File: /etc/passwd
  Size: 1993      	Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: fd00h/64768d	Inode: 132674      Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2024-11-10 19:17:01.327124248 +0000
Modify: 2024-02-02 19:14:45.316650111 +0000
Change: 2024-02-02 19:14:45.320650046 +0000
 Birth: 2024-02-02 19:14:45.316650111 +0000

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