# Looking Around: ls ls lists what's in a folder, ls -a adds the hidden names that start with a dot, and ls -l shows each one's details, such as whether it's a folder, its size and when it last changed. Novice · Unix · Linux · Updated November 10, 2026 ## After this lesson you can - List a folder's files and folders with ls, hidden ones included with ls -a - Read ls -l to tell a folder from a file and to find a file's size and date ## Key takeaways - ls lists the files and folders in the folder you're in, or in a folder you name after it. - Names that start with a dot are hidden. ls -a shows them too, with . (this folder) and .. (the folder it's in). - ls -l gives one line per name. A d at the start means a folder, and the size in bytes comes just before the date it last changed. - Options such as -a, -l and -h change what a command shows, and they can be combined, as in ls -la. Your Downloads folder has 600 files in it, and you need to know whether last month's phone bill is one of them. Or a program asks for its settings file, and the folder looks empty in your file manager. Looking inside a folder is the thing you'll do most often in a terminal, and it takes two letters. These examples use the practice folder from *Where Am I? pwd and Paths*. If you don't have it yet, the setup lines in that lesson make it in a few seconds. Then go into it with `cd ~/terminal-practice/trip`. ## ls: what's in here? `ls` (short for *list*) lists what's in the folder you're in: ```bash ls ``` ```text day-1-beach day-3-mountains packing-list.txt day-2-city itinerary.txt 'photos to print' ``` Six names, sorted alphabetically and laid out in columns to fit the window. The ones ending in `.txt` are files; the rest here are folders, and most terminals color folders blue to tell them apart. `ls` puts quotes around `'photos to print'` to show that the spaces are part of one name. (*Let the Shell Type for You: Tab* shows how to type a name like that.) On a Mac, `ls` shows the same names without the quotes, laid out a little differently. Name a folder after `ls` to look inside it without going there: ```bash ls day-2-city ``` ```text museum.jpg receipts street-food.jpg ``` ## Hidden files: ls -a Some files are hidden on purpose, usually settings that programs keep for themselves, so they don't clutter your folders. On Linux and on a Mac, a name that starts with a dot is a **hidden file**, and plain `ls` skips it. Add `-a` (for *all*) to see everything: ```bash ls -a ``` ```text . .trip-notes.txt day-2-city itinerary.txt 'photos to print' .. day-1-beach day-3-mountains packing-list.txt ``` Three new names. `.trip-notes.txt` is a hidden file in the practice folder. The other two are in every folder: `.` (read "dot") means this folder, and `..` (read "dot dot") means the folder it's inside. You'll use `..` all the time in *Moving Around: cd, .. and ~*. The `-a` is an **option**, also called a **flag**: a dash and a letter after the command that changes what it does. Most commands have several. ## The details: ls -l `-l` (for *long*) gives one line per name, with its details: ```bash ls -l ``` ```text total 24 drwxr-xr-x 2 sam sam 4096 Nov 8 17:11 day-1-beach drwxr-xr-x 3 sam sam 4096 Nov 8 17:11 day-2-city drwxr-xr-x 2 sam sam 4096 Nov 8 17:11 day-3-mountains -rw-r--r-- 1 sam sam 54 Nov 8 17:11 itinerary.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 sam sam 37 Nov 8 17:11 packing-list.txt drwxr-xr-x 2 sam sam 4096 Nov 8 17:11 'photos to print' ``` ![One line of ls -l output for itinerary.txt with each part labeled: the first character (- for a file, d for a folder), who may read or change it, the owner, the size in bytes (54), the date it last changed and the name](https://fsdtrainingmedia.blob.core.windows.net/public/images/2026/11/96947df2f1674f3b83c3f2ac41724537.webp) Read a line from the left: - **The first character** is `d` for a directory (a folder) or `-` for a file. - **The rest of the first column** says who may read and change it. *Permissions: Read, Write and Run*, in Module 4, explains it; skip it for now, along with the number after it. - **`sam sam`** is the owner and the owner's group. - **The number before the date** is the size in bytes. A byte is about one letter of plain text, so `itinerary.txt`, with its three short lines, is 54 bytes. A folder always shows a size like 4096: that's the room its list of names takes up, not the size of what's inside. - **The date and time** say when it last changed. Yours will show the day you made the folder. - **The name** comes last. ## Big sizes, and options together Big files have long sizes in bytes. `-h` (for *human-readable*) writes them with K, M and G for kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes. Here it's used on bash itself, the program reading your commands: ```bash ls -lh /usr/bin/bash ``` ```text -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1.5M Feb 13 2026 /usr/bin/bash ``` 1.5 megabytes, owned by `root`, the computer's administrator account. The photos in the practice folder are empty stand-ins, so they show a size of 0. Options can be combined: `ls -l -a` and `ls -la` do the same thing, details and hidden files together, and the order of the letters doesn't matter. Try `ls -la` yourself and find `.trip-notes.txt` in the long list. ## Try it in the terminal [Terminal Quest: The Lighthouse, goal 2](https://www.ask-codey.com/games/terminal-quest/lighthouse/bash/step): played right on the lesson page. You know where you are on the lighthouse grounds. Now look around and see what's there. ## Check yourself 2 questions to try on the lesson page. ## So what A file manager shows you what it decides to show. `ls` and its options show everything in a folder, hidden settings included, along with the size and date of each file. ## Key terms - [ls](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/ls) - [Hidden File](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/hidden-file) - [Flags and Options](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/flags-and-options) - [Directory](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/directory) ## Cheat sheets - [Looking Around: ls](https://www.ask-codey.com/cheat-sheets/bash-looking-around-cheat-sheet) ## Related - [Where Am I? pwd and Paths](https://www.ask-codey.com/lessons/bash-where-am-i) - [Moving Around: cd, .. and ~](https://www.ask-codey.com/lessons/bash-moving-around) Source: https://www.ask-codey.com/lessons/bash-looking-around