Recently I was digging around in the terminal and wanted an ls command that behaved like a fully opened tree view. That led me back through a bunch of the file-system commands I use all the time, along with a few switches that make them far more useful.
This is the resulting quick reference. I’m writing this on macOS with zsh, but most of it applies directly to Linux too. A few tools—particularly tree and fd—may need to be installed first.
First, the Many Faces of ls
The plain command lists the current directory.
ls
Add -l for the vertical, long-listing format. This shows permissions, link count, owner, group, size, modified date, and name.
ls -l
Add -a to include hidden entries—names beginning with a dot—and -h to make sizes human-readable. The switches can be combined.
ls -lah
To descend through every directory and list its contents, add -R for recursive.
ls -laRh
That gets us the fully opened contents, although the output is grouped by directory rather than drawn as a visual tree.
Navigation
1. pwd — Where Am I?
When I’ve wandered six directories deep and forgotten where I am, pwd prints the full path to the working directory.
pwd
2. cd — Change Directory
Move into a directory, up one level, back to the previous directory, or straight home.
cd projects
cd ..
cd -
cd ~
Paths containing spaces need quotes, as in cd "My Projects".
3. pushd and popd — Directory Bookmarks, Sort Of
pushd changes directories while saving the current location on a stack. popd takes me back. This is excellent when bouncing between two distant parts of a repository.
pushd ~/Code/my-project/docs
popd
4. tree — The Actual Tree View
Unlike recursive ls, tree draws the hierarchy. -a includes hidden entries, -L 2 limits output to two levels, and -h prints readable sizes.
tree -a -h -L 2
On macOS, install it with brew install tree if it is not already available.
Finding and Inspecting Things
5. find — Search the Directory Tree
Find every Markdown file below the current directory. Here . means “start here,” -type f limits results to files, and -name supplies the filename pattern.
find . -type f -name "*.md"
Use -type d to find directories instead.
6. fd — A Friendlier Find
fd provides a concise, fast alternative when installed. This finds Markdown files while including hidden paths but excluding .git.
fd --hidden --exclude .git '\.md$'
Install it on macOS with brew install fd.
7. stat — All the File Details
stat reports metadata such as size, permissions, timestamps, and inode information.
stat quick-article.md
The exact output differs between macOS and Linux, but the intent is the same.
8. file — What Is This Thing?
Extensions can lie. file inspects the contents and reports what it believes the file actually is.
file mysterious-download
9. du — What Is Using the Space?
du measures disk usage. -s summarizes instead of listing everything below the target, and -h makes the result readable.
du -sh .
du -sh ./*
10. df — How Much Disk Is Left?
Where du examines files and directories, df reports free and used space on mounted file systems. Again, -h keeps the numbers readable.
df -h
11. less — Read Without Flooding the Terminal
For a file longer than one screen, use less. Search with /text, advance with the space bar, move backward with b, and quit with q.
less application.log
12. head and tail — Inspect the Edges
These show the beginning or end of a file. -n 20 asks for twenty lines. tail -f keeps watching as new lines arrive, which is particularly handy for logs.
head -n 20 application.log
tail -n 20 application.log
tail -f application.log
Creating and Managing Files
13. mkdir — Create Directories
The useful switch here is -p: it creates missing parent directories and does not complain if the path already exists.
mkdir -p notes/terminal/examples
14. touch — Create an Empty File
If the file does not exist, touch creates it. If it does exist, touch updates its timestamps without changing the contents.
touch notes.md
15. cp — Copy
Copy a file with plain cp. Use -R to copy a directory recursively and -i to ask before overwriting something.
cp -i notes.md notes-backup.md
cp -Ri source-folder destination-folder
16. mv — Move or Rename
mv handles both jobs. I often include -i for an overwrite prompt.
mv -i draft.md published.md
mv -i published.md archive/
17. ln — Create a Link
ln -s creates a symbolic link. The first path is the existing target; the second is the new link.
ln -s ~/Code/my-project/current-config.json config.json
18. rmdir — Remove an Empty Directory
rmdir only removes empty directories. That limitation makes it useful when I want the command to refuse anything containing files.
rmdir old-empty-folder
19. rm — Remove Files Carefully
Plain rm removes files. -i asks before each removal. Recursive -R removes directories and their contents, so double-check the path before pressing Return.
rm -i unwanted.txt
rm -Ri unwanted-folder
There generally is no built-in undo. On macOS, moving something to the Trash in Finder is often a better choice when I’m not absolutely sure.
20. open — Hand It to macOS
open opens a file in its default application. Give it a directory and Finder opens there; use -a to choose an application.
open README.md
open .
open -a "Visual Studio Code" .
On Linux, the closest general equivalent is usually xdg-open.
A Few Combinations I Actually Use
Here are the quick combinations I tend to reach for most often.
# Everything here, including hidden entries, with readable details.
ls -lah
# Everything below here, recursively, in long format.
ls -laRh
# A manageable visual overview, two levels deep.
tree -a -L 2
# Find the biggest immediate entries in the current directory.
du -sh ./* | sort -h
# Jump somewhere temporarily, inspect it, and jump back.
pushd ~/Code/some-project
ls -lah
popd
That’s the lot: twenty-ish commands and a pile of switches that turn the terminal into a quick file-system navigator. The commands themselves are only half of the story. Run man ls, man find, or man followed by any of the built-in commands above to spelunk through everything else they can do.
