stat

Display file status

$ stat [file]

$ stat -t [file]

$ stat -f [file]

$ stat -c "%n: %s bytes" [file]

$ stat -c "%x" [file]

$ stat -c "%y" [file]

$ stat -c "%a" [file]

$ stat [file1] [file2] [file3]

$ stat -L [symlink]

stat [options] file...

stat displays detailed information about files or filesystems. It shows metadata including size, permissions, ownership, timestamps, inode number, and device information.
The default output includes file name, size, blocks, device, inode, links, access permissions, ownership, and access/modify/change times. Custom format strings allow selecting specific fields.
stat is useful for scripting when specific file attributes are needed, or for investigating file properties not shown by ls.

-f, --file-system

Display filesystem status instead of file.

Follow symbolic links.

Print terse output.

Use custom format string.

%a: Access rights in octal
%A: Access rights in human readable form
%F: File type
%g: Group ID
%G: Group name
%h: Number of hard links
%i: Inode number
%n: File name
%s: Size in bytes
%u: User ID
%U: User name
%x: Access time
%y: Modification time
%z: Change time

%a: Free blocks
%b: Total blocks
%f: Free blocks (non-root)
%n: File name
%s: Block size
%T: Filesystem type

Output format differs between GNU stat (Linux) and BSD stat (macOS). Some filesystems don't support all attributes. Access times may be disabled on some systems for performance.

stat has different origins on different systems. The GNU version (part of coreutils) was written by Michael Meskes in 2001. BSD systems have their own implementation with slightly different syntax. The command provides a standard interface to the stat() system call.

ls(1), file(1), touch(1), chmod(1)