ls

Since:		All Linux
		macOS(2001 Cheetah)
		Bash 1.0(1989)

The ls command displays the contents of a directory — a list of files and subdirectories. It is one of the most commonly used Bash commands, and you can combine options to view detailed information such as file sizes and permissions.

Syntax

ls [options] [directory or file]

Options

Option	Description
-l	Displays detailed information (permissions, owner, size, and modification date) one entry per line.
-a	Shows all files, including hidden files that start with a dot (.).
-h	Displays file sizes in human-readable units (K, M, G). Use together with -l.
-R	Recursively lists the contents of subdirectories.
-t	Sorts entries by modification time, newest first.
-r	Reverses the sort order. Combined with -t, this shows oldest entries first.
-1	Lists one file per line.

Sample Code

The following examples use this directory structure.

Lists the contents of the current directory.

ls
Documents  README.md  script.sh

Displays detailed information for each entry.

ls -l
total 48
drwxr-xr-x  3 user staff   96 Mar  5 10:00 Documents
-rw-r--r--  1 user staff 1200 Mar  5 09:45 README.md
-rwxr-xr-x  1 user staff 2800 Mar  4 18:30 script.sh

Shows detailed information including hidden files.

ls -la
total 56
drwxr-xr-x  5 user staff  160 Mar  5 10:00 .
drwxr-xr-x  8 user staff  256 Mar  5 09:00 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 user staff   50 Mar  4 12:00 .hidden
drwxr-xr-x  3 user staff   96 Mar  5 10:00 Documents
-rw-r--r--  1 user staff 1200 Mar  5 09:45 README.md
-rwxr-xr-x  1 user staff 2800 Mar  4 18:30 script.sh

Displays detailed information with human-readable file sizes.

ls -lh
total 48K
drwxr-xr-x  3 user staff   96B Mar  5 10:00 Documents
-rw-r--r--  1 user staff  1.2K Mar  5 09:45 README.md
-rwxr-xr-x  1 user staff  2.8K Mar  4 18:30 script.sh

Sorts entries by modification time, newest first.

ls -lt
total 48
drwxr-xr-x  3 user staff   96 Mar  5 10:00 Documents
-rw-r--r--  1 user staff 1200 Mar  5 09:45 README.md
-rwxr-xr-x  1 user staff 2800 Mar  4 18:30 script.sh

Recursively lists subdirectory contents as well.

ls -R
.:
Documents  README.md  script.sh

./Documents:
report.txt

Lists only files with a specific extension (using a wildcard).

ls *.sh
script.sh

Common Mistakes

Common Mistake 1: Parsing ls output in scripts breaks on unusual filenames

The output of ls is for human display. Filenames with spaces, newlines, or special characters can break scripts that parse ls output.

for f in $(ls); do
    echo "$f"
done
（filenames with spaces are split into multiple words）

Use glob patterns or find instead.

for f in *; do echo "$f"; done

Common Mistake 2: Dot files are hidden without -a

Files and directories starting with . are hidden from the default ls output.

ls
Documents  README.md  script.sh
ls -a
.  ..  .bashrc  .gitignore  Documents  README.md  script.sh

Use -a to include hidden files in the listing.

Notes

The string at the beginning of each ls -l output line (e.g., drwxr-xr-x) represents the file permissions. A leading d means it is a directory; a leading - means it is a regular file. For information on changing permissions, see chmod / chown / chgrp.

For more detailed file information such as inode numbers and timestamps, use stat / file / du / df.

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ls