How to tell what type of filesystem you're on?

Question

Is there a command to tell what type of filesystem you're using?

Possible duplicate: http://unix.stackexchange.com/q/43237/863 (Yes it's newer, but it has a) an accepted answer and b) also works for unmounted filesystems and image files) — Tobias Kienzler, Nov 02 '12 at 06:57
It would help for the target operating system(s) to be specified. Most of the answers assume it is Linux but this isn't stated in the question. — jlliagre, Nov 02 '12 at 10:03
related: https://askubuntu.com/questions/309047/how-do-i-find-out-what-filesystem-my-partitions-are-using — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, Jun 15 '18 at 07:46
Related Q&A I just added: How do I find out which partitions my filesystems (and mount points) are on, and how full they are? — Gabriel Staples, Feb 01 '23 at 02:27

score 29 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 20 '12 at 23:20

Your question can be taken several ways. Literally Karlson's answer is pretty cool because it tells you the filesystem of the volume | partition that you are currently on.

df -hT I have always liked this command because it shows you all the "standard" filesystems that are mounted and does it in human-readable size format.

However, you may have other disks or volumes that are not mounted (commented out), failed to mount, or have been unmounted. Another thing you can do is to run cat /etc/fstab this will show you the "filesystem table" and list the filesystems that are supposed to be mounted on boot along with the location, filesystem type, mountpoint, and more.

I just want to note that if you see fuseblk, it's (most likely) NTFS. — phunehehe, Feb 03 '16 at 12:46

score 24 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 30 '16 at 18:46

24

The stat command on Linux systems is used to display file or file system status. For more information read manpage by running man stat in terminal.

$ stat -f -c %T /
xfs
$ stat -f -c %T /boot
ext2/ext3
$ stat -f -c %T /srv
btrfs
$ stat -f -c %T /tmp
tmpfs

Flags used above:

-f, --file-system - display file system status instead of file status

-c --format=FORMAT - use the specified FORMAT instead of the default output a newline after each use of FORMAT

Valid format sequences for file systems:

%T - Type in human readable form

edited Jun 30 '16 at 18:46

Community

1

answered Mar 21 '12 at 00:59

ephemient

15,880

3

If it matters, I believe this is specific to Linux. – Chris Down Mar 21 '12 at 14:17
6

It never shows ext4! – Pandya Jan 22 '16 at 08:52
@ChrisDown is right, at least on MacOS the stat command lacks the --file-system option (-f is stilla valid option, but have a different meaning). – gerlos Dec 12 '17 at 09:12
For anyone else who misinterpreted the manual pages, man stat lists %T among others, twice. The "valid format sequences for file systems" section of relevant when using the -f option. – Jonathan Komar Sep 09 '21 at 09:09
On an Azure Ubuntu VM, I get tmpfs for every block device, and ext2/ext3 for directories. This contradicts the output from df -T, lsblk -f, blkid, etc. – daviewales Oct 24 '23 at 22:22

score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 20 '12 at 22:19

10

If you do:

df -k .

It will tell you what filesystem your current directory is on.

answered Mar 20 '12 at 22:19

Karlson

5,875

18

df . is enough for this. And, if you need to know the filesystem type, df -T . will do. – Alexios Mar 20 '12 at 22:29
To see the partition of some specific file check here. – Ayush Goyal Mar 21 '12 at 14:08
Only df -T or df --print-type works on the latest Mint. – Cees Timmerman Feb 12 '19 at 18:29

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 20 '12 at 23:10

7

You can also use lsblk -f and blkid to get information about your filesystems and their properties.

answered Mar 20 '12 at 23:10

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 20 '12 at 23:19

4

df -T . | awk '{ getline ; print $2 }'

answered Mar 20 '12 at 23:19

Chris Down

125,559
25
270
266

gerlos · Answer 6 · 2020-04-26T22:23:17.320

On GNU Linux you can get an overview of your storage using lsblk and then get the file system type for the device you're interested using something like one of the following:

$ fsck -N /dev/sda1 (you don't need superuser powers to use this command)
$ df -T /dev/sda1 (doesn't require superuser powers, but requires the file system to be mounted)
# file -s /dev/sda1
# blkid /dev/sda1

These may be useful if your file system is on a LVM volume, since lsblk won't tell you what file system is in there.

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 20 '12 at 23:00

Run df ., which will tell you on what filesystem the current directory resides. Then run mount, which will produce a list of mounted filesystems along with their types and mount options. This works for me:

mount | fgrep -w "`df . | grep '%' | sed -e 's/.*% *//'`"

score 2 · Answer 8 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

2

Just use blkid -o value -s TYPE "$DEV", it also works for unmounted devices or even image files.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

Community

1

answered Nov 02 '12 at 06:55

Tobias Kienzler

9,374

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Mar 21 '12 at 21:43

0

cat /etc/mtab for mounted filesystems.

answered Mar 21 '12 at 21:43

Nils

18,492

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Oct 25 '23 at 01:14

For an overview of all filesystems:

lsblk -f

To get just the name, type, filesystem, and partition type:

$ lsblk -o NAME,TYPE,FSTYPE,PTTYPE
NAME    TYPE FSTYPE   PTTYPE
sda     disk          gpt
├─sda1  part ext4     gpt
├─sda14 part          gpt
└─sda15 part vfat     gpt
sdb     disk          dos
└─sdb1  part ext4     dos
sdd     disk

To get just the filesystem for a specific partition (-n removes the header):

$ lsblk -n -o FSTYPE /dev/sda1
ext4

How to tell what type of filesystem you're on?

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