Linux Filesystem Cheat Sheet

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High-value Linux filesystem commands for navigating, listing, inspecting, copying, moving, linking, and organizing files and directories.

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Navigation

Move through the filesystem and inspect your current location.

Print working directory

Show the absolute path of the current directory.

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bashANYnavigationpaths

bash

pwd

Useful for confirming your current location before running destructive commands.

Go to home directory

Change to the current user's home directory.

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bashANYnavigationhome

bash

cd ~

Go to parent directory

Move up one directory level.

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bashANYnavigationparent

bash

cd ..

Go to previous directory

Switch back to the last directory you were in.

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bashANYnavigationhistory

bash

cd -

Show directory stack

Display directories stored by pushd/popd.

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bashANYnavigationstack

bash

dirs -v

Listing and Inspection

List files, inspect metadata, and understand what is in a directory.

Long listing with human sizes

Show detailed directory contents with human-readable sizes.

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bashANYlslistingmetadata

bash

ls -lah

List files sorted by modification time

Show newest files first.

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bashANYlssortingtime

bash

ls -lt

Show directory tree to a depth

Visualize nested files and directories.

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bashANYtreelistingdirectories

bash

tree -L 2

Show detailed file metadata

Inspect inode, permissions, timestamps, and ownership.

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bashANYstatmetadatainode

bash

stat path/to/file

Detect file type

Show MIME-like or content-based type information.

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bashANYfiletypeinspection

bash

file path/to/file

Directory Creation and Removal

Create directory trees and remove them safely.

Create nested directories

Create a directory path including missing parents.

↗#

bashANYmkdirdirectories

bash

mkdir -p app/data/uploads

Remove empty directory

Delete a directory only if it is empty.

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bashANYrmdirdirectories

bash

rmdir empty-dir

Remove directory recursively

Delete a directory and all of its contents.

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bashANYrmdirectoriesdanger

bash

rm -rf old-build

Powerful and destructive. Verify the path first.

Copy, Move, Rename

Common file and directory manipulation commands.

Copy directory recursively with preserved metadata

Copy directory trees while preserving timestamps and mode when possible.

↗#

bashANYcpcopydirectories

bash

cp -a source-dir target-dir

Copy interactively

Prompt before overwriting an existing file.

↗#

bashANYcpsafety

bash

cp -i source.txt dest.txt

Rename file

Rename a file or move it within the same filesystem.

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bashANYmvrename

bash

mv old-name.txt new-name.txt

Move directory

Move a directory to a new location.

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bashANYmvdirectories

bash

mv logs /var/archive/logs

Install file with mode

Copy a file and set destination permissions in one step.

↗#

bashANYinstallpermissionsdeploy

bash

install -m 755 script.sh /usr/local/bin/script

Links

Create and inspect hard links and symlinks.

Create hard link

Create another filename pointing to the same inode.

↗#

bashANYlnhard-link

bash

ln original.txt alias.txt

Create symbolic link

Create a symlink to another file or directory.

↗#

bashANYlnsymlink

bash

ln -s /opt/app/current app-current

Show symlink target

Print where a symlink points.

↗#

bashANYreadlinksymlink

bash

readlink app-current

Resolve canonical absolute path

Normalize paths and follow symlinks.

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bashANYrealpathpathssymlink

bash

realpath ./app-current/../config

Space Usage

Understand file and directory sizes.

Directory size summary

Show total size for a directory in human-readable format.

↗#

bashANYdusizedisk-usage

bash

du -sh /var/log

Top-level sizes under current directory

Show one-level deep size totals.

↗#

bashANYdusizeanalysis

bash

du -h --max-depth=1 .

Filesystem free space

Display mounted filesystem capacity and usage.

↗#

bashANYdffilesystemcapacity

bash

df -h

Find largest files

List the biggest files under a directory.

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bashANYfindsizecleanup

bash

find . -type f -printf '%s %p
' | sort -nr | head -20

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