ls

List files and folders

What it does

ls lists what is in a folder: the current one with no arguments, otherwise the one you name. -l gives a detailed list with permissions, owner, size and modification date, and -a adds hidden files, whose names start with a dot, such as .git and .env.

-h together with -l shows sizes in readable units, 4.0K or 12M instead of a byte count. Flags can be combined: ls -la is the same as ls -l -a.

Syntax

ls
ls <folder>
ls -la
ls -lh <folder>

Examples

• List all files, hidden ones included, in the long format

  ls -la

  same as: ls -al, ls -l -a, ls -a -l

  • ls — list files
  • -l — long format
  • -a — hidden files too (starting with a dot)

• List the files in the logs folder with sizes in KB and MB

  ls -lh logs

  same as: ls -hl logs, ls -l -h logs, ls -h -l logs

  • -l — long format
  • -h — human-readable sizes
  • logs — which folder to list

Related commands

• cd — Go to another folder
• pwd — Show which folder you are in
• find — Find files and folders by name, type and more

Practise · All commands