ls: list files and directories

Updated November 2026

ls lists the contents of a directory. It is usually the first command people type on a new system, and its long format shows permissions, owners, sizes and dates at a glance.

ls [options] [file or directory ...]

Common options

Option	Meaning
`-l`	Long format: permissions, links, owner, group, size, date, name
`-a`	Include hidden files (names starting with `.`)
`-A`	Like `-a` but without `.` and `..`
`-h`	Sizes in K, M, G (with `-l`)
`-t`	Sort by modification time, newest first
`-S`	Sort by size, largest first
`-r`	Reverse the sort order
`-R`	List subdirectories recursively
`-d`	List a directory itself, not its contents
`-i`	Show inode numbers
`-1`	One name per line

Examples

ls                      # names in the current directory
ls -l /etc              # long listing of /etc
ls -la                  # include hidden files such as .bashrc
ls -lh                  # human-readable sizes
ls -ltr                 # oldest first, newest at the bottom: handy for log directories
ls -lS | head           # largest files first
ls -ld /tmp             # details of the directory itself
ls -l *.conf            # only files ending in .conf
ls -1 | wc -l           # count entries

Reading the long format

-rw-r--r--  1 anna staff  4820 Nov  2 09:14 report.txt
drwxr-x---  3 anna staff  4096 Oct 30 17:02 projects
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root     11 Sep  5  2025 vi -> /usr/bin/vim

The first character is the type: - file, d directory, l symbolic link, c/b device, s socket, p pipe.
The next nine are the permissions for owner, group and others (see chmod). A trailing + means an ACL; . means an SELinux context.
Then: number of links, owner, group, size in bytes, modification time, name.
Dates older than six months show the year instead of the time.

Useful extras

ls -l --time-style=long-iso       # full dates: 2026-11-02 09:14 (GNU)
ls -lu                            # show access time instead of modification time
ls --color=auto                   # colours (GNU, FreeBSD and recent macOS; older macOS: ls -G)
ls -lZ                            # SELinux contexts (Linux)

Portability notes

The basic options work everywhere. Long options such as --time-style are GNU extensions. FreeBSD and macOS accept --color or -G for colour and -T for full timestamps; OpenBSD's ls has no colour option. Do not parse the output of ls in scripts; file names can contain spaces and newlines. Use wildcards or find instead.