Count Files in Linux

The short answer

On Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and macOS, to count the number of files and folders contained in a specified directory, you can combine the ls and wc commands as follows:

$ ls -1 <path> | wc -l

Where:

• The ls -1 command is used to output the files and directories in the form of a list.
• The wc -l command is used to count the number of lines outputted by the ls command.
• The path argument is the relative or absolute path to the desired directory.

For example:

$ ls -1 ~/server | wc -l
     5

Counting entries recursively

If you want to output the number of files and directories contained in the subfolders of the specified directory, including hidden files (i.e. dotfiles), you can use the -R (i.e. "recursive") and -A (i.e. "all") flags as follows:

$ ls -1RA ~/server | wc -l
     265

Counting regular files only

To output the number of regular files only contained in a specific directory, including its subdirectories, you can combined the find and wc commands as follows:

$ find <path> -type f | wc -l

Where:

• The find -type f command is used to search for regular files only.
• The path argument is the relative or absolute path to the desired directory.

Note that you can limit the search depth of the find command using the -maxdepth flag.

For example:

$ find ~/server -type f | wc -l
     59
$ find ~/server -type f -maxdepth 1 | wc -l
     5

Easily retrieve these commands using Warp's AI Command Suggestions feature

If you’re using Warp as your terminal, you can easily retrieve this command using the Warp AI Command Suggestions feature:

Entering count regular files in folder in the AI Command Suggestions will prompt a find command that can then quickly be inserted into your shell by doing CMD+ENTER.