tree

tree [options] [directory...]

tree displays the contents of directories in a tree-like format, showing the hierarchical relationship between files and subdirectories visually.The default output uses ASCII or Unicode box-drawing characters to represent the tree structure. Colorization helps distinguish file types (directories, executables, symlinks, etc.).Various output formats are supported for integration with other tools: JSON (-J) for programmatic parsing, XML (-X) for structured data, and HTML (-H) for web display.Filtering with -I (exclude) and -P (include) uses shell glob patterns, supporting wildcards like \* and ?.

-a

Show all files including hidden

List directories only

Limit depth to level

Print full path prefix

Print size of each file

Print sizes in human-readable format

Print last modification date

Print file permissions

Print username

Print group name

Exclude files matching pattern

List only files matching pattern

List directories before files

Colorize output

Turn off colorization

Sort output in reverse order

Sort by last modification time

Send output to filename

Show cumulative directory sizes

Prune empty directories from output

Use .gitignore files for filtering

Omit file and directory count at end of listing

Do not descend directories with more than N entries

Output HTML with base URL

Output JSON

Output XML

Large directories can produce overwhelming output. Use -L to limit depth or -d for directories only when exploring unfamiliar structures.Tree does not follow symbolic links by default if they would cause recursion. Use -l to follow all symlinks.Using --prune and --du causes tree to accumulate the entire tree in memory before output, which may be slow for very large directory trees.

ls(1), find(1), du(1), exa(1), eza(1), lsd(1)