---
name: "quota"
section: "1"
platform: "freebsd"
package: "base"
version: "16.0-CURRENT-20261027-61c70dc16a79"
release: "FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27)"
platforms: ["linux", "freebsd", "openbsd", "macos"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/quota"
---

# quota(1)

display disk usage and limits

## NAME

**quota** – display disk usage and limits

## SYNOPSIS

**quota** \[**-ghlu**\] \[**-f** *path*\] \[**-v** \| **-q** \| **-r**\]

**quota** \[**-hlu**\] \[**-f** *path*\] \[**-v** \| **-q** \| **-r**\] *user* *...*

**quota** **-g** \[**-hl**\] \[**-f** *path*\] \[**-v** \| **-q** \| **-r**\] *group* *...*

## DESCRIPTION

The **quota** utility displays users' disk usage and limits. By default only the user quotas are printed. Disk block usage and limits are shown in 1024-byte blocks.

The following options are available:

- **-f** *path*

  Only display quota information for the file system that contains the specified path. This can be any file within a mounted file system.

- **-g**

  Print group quotas for the group of which the user is a member.

- **-h**

  "Human-readable" output. Use unit suffixes: Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte and Petabyte.

- **-l**

  Do not report quotas on NFS file systems.

- **-q**

  Print a more terse message, containing only information on file systems where usage is over quota. The **-q** flag takes precedence over the **-v** flag.

- **-r**

  Display the raw quota information as it appears in the quota structure. Non-zero time values will also be displayed in [ctime(3)](/ctime/3.md) format. This option implies **-v** and will override the **-q** flag.

- **-u**

  Print the user quotas. This is the default unless **-g** is specified.

- **-v**

  Display quotas on file systems where no storage is allocated.

Specifying both **-g** and **-u** displays both the user quotas and the group quotas (for the user).

Only the super-user may use the **-u** flag and the optional *user* argument to view the limits of other users. Non-super-users can use the **-g** flag and optional *group* argument to view only the limits of groups of which they are members.

The **quota** utility tries to report the quotas of all mounted file systems. If the file system is mounted via NFS, it will attempt to contact the [rpc.rquotad(8)](/rpc.rquotad/8.md) daemon on the NFS server. For UFS file systems, quotas must be turned on in */etc/fstab*. If **quota** exits with a non-zero status, one or more file systems are over quota or the path specified with the **-f** option does not exist.

If the **-l** flag is specified, **quota** will not check NFS file systems.

## FILES

- *quota.user*

  located at the file system root with user quotas

- *quota.group*

  located at the file system root with group quotas

- */etc/fstab*

  to find file system names and locations

## SEE ALSO

[quotactl(2)](/quotactl/2.md), [ctime(3)](/ctime/3.md), [fstab(5)](/fstab/5.md), [edquota(8)](/edquota/8.md), [quotacheck(8)](/quotacheck/8.md), [quotaon(8)](/quotaon/8.md), [repquota(8)](/repquota/8.md), [rpc.rquotad(8)](/rpc.rquotad/8.md)

## HISTORY

The **quota** command appeared in 4.2BSD.