How to get the size of each sub directories and sort them by size?

 

To get the size of each sub directory, we can use the directory usage (du) command.

For example, how to get the size of sub-directory with max-depth 1?

$ du -d 1 -h

How to sort the output by each directory's size from the output of the du -h?

  
  $ du -d 1 -h | sort -hr
  
  

sort -h gives the trick, and -r further sort it in the reverse order.

For more options that are available for du utility, you can use du --help to see more.

Usage: du [OPTION]... [FILE]...
  or:  du [OPTION]... --files0-from=F
Summarize disk usage of the set of FILEs, recursively for directories.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
  -0, --null            end each output line with NUL, not newline
  -a, --all             write counts for all files, not just directories
      --apparent-size   print apparent sizes, rather than disk usage; although
                          the apparent size is usually smaller, it may be
                          larger due to holes in ('sparse') files, internal
                          fragmentation, indirect blocks, and the like
  -B, --block-size=SIZE  scale sizes by SIZE before printing them; e.g.,
                           '-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes;
                           see SIZE format below
  -b, --bytes           equivalent to '--apparent-size --block-size=1'
  -c, --total           produce a grand total
  -D, --dereference-args  dereference only symlinks that are listed on the
                          command line
  -d, --max-depth=N     print the total for a directory (or file, with --all)
                          only if it is N or fewer levels below the command
                          line argument;  --max-depth=0 is the same as
                          --summarize
      --files0-from=F   summarize disk usage of the
                          NUL-terminated file names specified in file F;
                          if F is -, then read names from standard input
  -H                    equivalent to --dereference-args (-D)
  -h, --human-readable  print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)
      --inodes          list inode usage information instead of block usage
  -k                    like --block-size=1K
  -L, --dereference     dereference all symbolic links
  -l, --count-links     count sizes many times if hard linked
  -m                    like --block-size=1M
  -P, --no-dereference  don't follow any symbolic links (this is the default)
  -S, --separate-dirs   for directories do not include size of subdirectories
      --si              like -h, but use powers of 1000 not 1024
  -s, --summarize       display only a total for each argument
  -t, --threshold=SIZE  exclude entries smaller than SIZE if positive,
                          or entries greater than SIZE if negative
      --time            show time of the last modification of any file in the
                          directory, or any of its subdirectories
      --time=WORD       show time as WORD instead of modification time:
                          atime, access, use, ctime or status
      --time-style=STYLE  show times using STYLE, which can be:
                            full-iso, long-iso, iso, or +FORMAT;
                            FORMAT is interpreted like in 'date'
  -X, --exclude-from=FILE  exclude files that match any pattern in FILE
      --exclude=PATTERN    exclude files that match PATTERN
  -x, --one-file-system    skip directories on different file systems
      --help     display this help and exit
      --version  output version information and exit