Find number of files in folder and sub folders?

Question

I want to find the total count of the number of files under a folder and all its sub folders.

score 302 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 21 '22 at 15:24

302

Maybe something like this will do the trick:

find . -type f | wc -l

Try the command from the parent folder.

find . -name <pattern> -type f finds all files in the current folder (.) and its subfolders.
-name <pattern> only looks for certain files that match the specified pattern. The match is case-sensitive. If you need the match to be case-insensitive, use -iname instead.
The result (a list of files found) is passed (|) to wc -l which counts the number of lines.

edited Dec 21 '22 at 15:24

BeastOfCaerbannog

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answered Apr 08 '11 at 12:06

sagarchalise

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The solution will fail on files which names contain a newline. – user unknown Apr 08 '11 at 14:23
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@user unknown: `find . -type f -ls | wc -l` – arrange Nov 22 '13 at 21:24
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even faster: `find . -type f -print0 | tr -d -c '\0' | wc -c` – arrange Nov 22 '13 at 21:44
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@arrange: even faster: `find . -type f -printf . | wc -c` - I adopt the print for my solution instead of my -exec echo . – user unknown Nov 23 '13 at 03:41
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Be aware that this also counts hidden files starting with a dot. I consider this a feature rather than a bug, but it is good to know. – cgogolin Jan 17 '16 at 13:13

score 34 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 08 '11 at 12:09

34

Use the tree command. You might need to install the tree package.

It will list all the files and folders under the given folder and list a summary at the end.

answered Apr 08 '11 at 12:09

Egil

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score 24 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 12 '13 at 20:59

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To count files (even files without an extension) at the root of the current directory, use:

ls -l | grep ^- | wc -l

To count files (even files without an extension) recursively from the root of the current directory, use:

ls -lR | grep ^- | wc -l

edited Nov 12 '13 at 20:59

Seth

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answered Nov 12 '13 at 20:39

user38537

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Those will not count hidden files. – user unknown Apr 20 '19 at 02:42
True. I'm more inclined to accept and use your answer as the solution. – user38537 Apr 23 '19 at 18:17
Actually, not counting hidden files / files in hidden directories is an useful _feature_ while working inside a subversion or git repository! – lfurini Apr 08 '20 at 13:00
And this is very slow on large folders because `ls -l` will sort the output. – Dr_Zaszuś Jul 12 '20 at 07:25

score 20 · Answer 4 · edited May 24 '18 at 01:53

The fastest and easiest way, is to use tree. Its speed is limited by your output terminal, so if you pipe the result to tail -1, you'll get immediate result. You can also control to what directory level you like the results, using the -L option. For colorized output, use -C. For example:

$ tree share/some/directory/ | tail -1
558 directories, 853 files

$ tree -L 2 share/some/directory/ | tail -1
120 directories, 3 files

If it's not already there, you can get it here.

user unknown · Answer 5 · 2013-11-23T03:45:11.240

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find -type f -printf . | wc -c

Don't count the output lines of find, because filenames, containing 99 newlines, will count as 100 files.

edited Nov 23 '13 at 03:45

answered Apr 08 '11 at 14:21

user unknown

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Filenames containing new lines is an incredibly rare edge case. – DisgruntledGoat Jul 22 '13 at 13:49
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@DisgruntledGoat: So an error will be extremely hard to find. – user unknown Jul 23 '13 at 02:41
I like a good edge case, especially many years later. – user38537 Apr 20 '19 at 02:16

score 6 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 20 '14 at 18:02

6

Use this command for each folder in the path

for D in *; do echo $D; find $D -type f| wc -l; done

answered Mar 20 '14 at 18:02

Sriram Murali

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score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 08 '11 at 12:06

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You can use find . | wc -l

find . will list all files and folders and theire contents starting in your current folder.
wc -l counts the results of find

answered Apr 08 '11 at 12:06

david

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This solution counts also the folders, I gave the mark cause it matched my occasion that I didnt want to count them in :) – topless Apr 08 '11 at 12:12
The solution will fail on files which names contain a newline. – user unknown Apr 08 '11 at 14:23

Mike Bounds · Answer 8 · 2016-07-21T09:57:29.713

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find seems to be quicker than tree so I used below to count files in each directory of the current working directory (ignoring files in CWD) with allowing directories to have spaces:

ls -d */ | while read dir_line do echo -n "$dir_line :" find "$dir_line" -type f | wc -l done

edited Jul 21 '16 at 09:57

answered Jul 21 '16 at 09:47

Mike Bounds

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Parsing output of `ls` is [very bad idea.](http://mywiki.wooledge.org/ParsingLs) – sourav c. Jul 21 '16 at 14:49
Great code, how can I arrange the output lines say in an increasing or decreasing count of files – nightcrawler Nov 19 '17 at 10:08

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered May 29 '16 at 06:55

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I'd go with this option myself:

ls -alR | grep -c ^-

answered May 29 '16 at 06:55

Charles

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Please add some details ... – Pierre.Vriens May 29 '16 at 07:18

Find number of files in folder and sub folders?

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