$ Linux Command

Administration

quota

Display disk usage and limits for users or groups.

quotadiskusagelimitsusersgroups

Additional Notes

quota displays current disk usage and quota limits for users and groups. It reads from the quota subsystem to show used space, soft limits, hard limits, grace periods, and inode (file count) usage.

System administrators and users use quota to check whether they are approaching their allocated disk limits. It helps in capacity planning, enforcing storage policies, and identifying which users or groups are consuming the most space.

Syntax

quota [options] [user-or-group]

Parameters

  • user-or-group: Username or group name to check. If omitted, shows the current user's quota.

Common Options

  • -u, --user: Display user quotas (default).
  • -g, --group: Display group quotas.
  • -v, --verbose: Show quotas on all filesystems, even those with no usage.
  • -s, --human-readable: Show sizes in human-readable format (K, M, G).
  • -l, --local-only: Show only local filesystems (no NFS).
  • -Q, --quiet-mounts: Suppress filesystem mount point headers.
  • -p, --raw: Show raw numbers without formatting.
  • -f filesystem: Show quotas only on the specified filesystem.
  • -n, --no-name: Show numeric UID/GID instead of resolving names.
  • -i: Show inode counts (number of files) instead of block usage.
  • --show-mntpoint: Display the filesystem mount point.

Examples

quota

Show current user's disk quota and usage.

quota -s

Show current user's quota in human-readable format.

quota -vs

Show quotas on all filesystems with human-readable sizes.

quota -g www-data

Show group quota for the www-data group.

quota -u alice

Show quota for user alice.

quota -f /home

Show quota information only for the /home filesystem.

quota -s -u $(whoami)

Check the current user's quota with human-readable output.

Practical Notes

  • Quotas must be enabled on the filesystem (via /etc/fstab mount options usrquota/grpquota) and activated with quotaon.
  • If quota shows no output, quotas may not be enabled for that filesystem or user.
  • The soft limit allows usage for a limited grace period. The hard limit is the absolute maximum.
  • Use -s for human-readable output; raw numbers are in 1KB blocks.
  • For a summary of all quotas on a filesystem, use repquota /filesystem.
  • Quota grace periods are displayed when a user has exceeded the soft limit.