gdu(1) General Commands Manual gdu(1)

gdu - Pretty fast disk usage analyzer written in Go

gdu [flags] [directory_to_scan]

Pretty fast disk usage analyzer written in Go.

Gdu is intended primarily for SSD disks where it can fully utilize parallel processing. However HDDs work as well, but the performance gain is not so huge.

-h, --help[=false] help for gdu

-i, --ignore-dirs=[/proc,/dev,/sys,/run] Paths to ignore (separated by comma). Supports both absolute and relative paths.

-I, --ignore-dirs-pattern Path patterns to ignore (separated by comma). Supports both absolute and relative path patterns.

-X, --ignore-from Read path patterns to ignore from file. Supports both absolute and relative path patterns.

-T, --type File types to include (e.g., –type yaml,json)

-E, --exclude-type File types to exclude (e.g., –exclude-type yaml,json)

--max-age Include files with mtime no older than DURATION (e.g., 7d, 2h30m, 1y2mo)

--min-age Include files with mtime at least DURATION old (e.g., 30d, 1w)

--since Include files with mtime >= WHEN. WHEN accepts RFC3339 timestamp (e.g., 2025-08-11T01:00:00-07:00) or date only YYYY-MM-DD (calendar-day compare; includes the whole day)

--until Include files with mtime <= WHEN. WHEN accepts RFC3339 timestamp or date only YYYY-MM-DD

-l, --log-file="/dev/null" Path to a logfile

-m, --max-cores Set max cores that Gdu will use.

-c, --no-color[=false] Do not use colorized output

-x, --no-cross[=false] Do not cross filesystem boundaries

-H, --no-hidden[=false] Ignore hidden directories (beginning with dot)

-L, --follow-symlinks[=false] Follow symlinks for files, i.e. show the size of the file to which symlink points to (symlinks to directories are not followed)

-n, --non-interactive[=false] Do not run in interactive mode

-p, --no-progress[=false] Do not show progress in non-interactive mode

-u, --no-unicode[=false] Do not use Unicode symbols (for size bar)

-s, --summarize[=false] Show only a total in non-interactive mode

-t, --top[=0] Show only top X largest files in non-interactive mode

-d, --show-disks[=false] Show all mounted disks

-a, --show-apparent-size[=false] Show apparent size

-C, --show-item-count[=false] Show number of items in directory

-k, --show-in-kib[=false] Show sizes in KiB (or kB with –si) in non-interactive mode

-M, --show-mtime[=false] Show latest mtime of items in directory

--archive-browsing[=false] Enable browsing of zip/jar archives

--depth[=0] Show directory structure up to specified depth in non-interactive mode (0 means the flag is ignored)

--collapse-path[=false] Collapse single-child directory chains

--mouse[=false] Use mouse

--si[=false] Show sizes with decimal SI prefixes (kB, MB, GB) instead of binary prefixes (KiB, MiB, GiB)

--no-prefix[=false] Show sizes as raw numbers without any prefixes (SI or binary) in non-interactive mode

--no-spawn-shell[=false] Do not allow spawning shell

--no-delete[=false] Do not allow deletions

-f, --input-file Import analysis from JSON file. If the file is "-", read from standard input.

-o, --output-file Export all info into file as JSON. If the file is "-", write to standard output.

--config-file="$HOME/.gdu.yaml" Read config from file

--write-config[=false] Write current configuration to file (default is $HOME/.gdu.yaml)

--enable-profiling[=false] Enable collection of profiling data and provide it on http://localhost:6060/debug/pprof/

-D, --db Store analysis in database (.sqlite for SQLite, .badger for BadgerDB)

-r, --read-from-storage[=false] Use existing database instead of re-scanning

-v, --version[=false] Print version

Files and directories may be prefixed by a one-character flag with following meaning:

!
An error occurred while reading this directory.
.
An error occurred while reading a subdirectory, size may be not correct.
@
File is symlink or socket.
Same file was already counted (hard link).
Directory is empty.
2026-02-13