How to sort files in emacs dired?

Question

Emacs dired mode is an easy to use text-based file manager. By default, files are displayed in alphabetical order. Is there a way to sort the files by file size descending order?

Fuqua

It is explained in this wiki: wikemacs.org/wiki/Dired#Sort_files and you have more options here: emacswiki.org/emacs/DiredSorting – Razor

@Razor Thank you. Wiki is a good place to learn. – Fuqua

Answer 1

You may customize the sort order by providing an argument to the dired-sort-toggle-or-edit which is bound to the s keystroke.

So to answer your question, just type Control+u s and pass the -lS switches. You may pass -lhS for human readable results.

Piccolo

The option l means "long" and instructs the command to display files in a detailed format, including information such as permissions, owner, group, size, and modification date. The option h means "human-readable" and instructs the command to display file sizes in a more easily understandable format for humans, such as "1K" for 1 kilobyte or "1G" for 1 gigabyte. The option S means "size" and instructs the command to sort files by file size, placing the largest files at the top of the list. – Renovate

Answer 2

You might want to use the extension dired-quick-sort. After setting it up, push "S" to display a sorting menu that offers many different ways to sort, including file size.

Disclaimer: I am the author of the extension.

Teammate