list the amount of blocks used by your home directory and everything under it

Question

What is the command to list the amount of blocks used by your home directory and everything under it? Only one number, not a whole list of them.

Answer 1

Like this:

du -s --block-size=$MY_BLOCK_SIZE $HOME

Of course, replace $MY_BLOCK_SIZE with the block size you want to use, or omit the --blocksize=$MY_BLOCK_SIZE argument if you want to use the default of 1024 bytes/block:

   Display  values  are  in units of the first available SIZE from --block-size, and the
   DU_BLOCK_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE and  BLOCKSIZE  environment  variables.   Otherwise,  units
   default to 1024 bytes (or 512 if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set).