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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OUTPUT | OPTIONS | EXIT STATUS | EVENTS | EXAMPLE | CAVEATS | BUGS | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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inotifywatch(1) General Commands Manual inotifywatch(1)
inotifywatch, fsnotifywatch - gather filesystem access statistics
using inotify or fanotify
inotifywatch [-hvzrPqfIFS] [-e <event> ] [-t <seconds> ] [-a
<event> ] [-d <event> ] <file> [ ... ]
fsnotifywatch [-hvzrPqfIFS] [-e <event> ] [-t <seconds> ] [-a
<event> ] [-d <event> ] <file> [ ... ]
inotifywatch listens for filesystem events using Linux's
inotify(7) interface by default, then outputs a summary count of
the events received on each file or directory.
fsnotifywatch is similar to inotifywatch but it is using Linux's
fanotify(7) interface by default. If explicitly specified, it uses
the inotify(7) interface.
inotifywatch and fsnotifywatch will output a table on standard out
with one column for each type of event and one row for each
watched file or directory. The table will show the amount of
times each event occurred for each watched file or directory.
Output can be sorted by a particular event using the -a or -d
options.
Some diagnostic information will be output on standard error.
-h, --help
Output some helpful usage information.
-v, --verbose
Output some extra information on standard error during
execution.
@<file>
When watching a directory tree recursively, exclude the
specified file from being watched. The file must be
specified with a relative or absolute path according to
whether a relative or absolute path is given for watched
directories. If a specific path is explicitly both
included and excluded, it will always be watched.
Note: If you need to watch a directory or file whose name
starts with @, give the absolute path.
--fromfile <file>
Read filenames to watch or exclude from a file, one
filename per line. If filenames begin with @ they are
excluded as described above. If <file> is `-', filenames
are read from standard input. Use this option if you need
to watch too many files to pass in as command line
arguments.
-z, --zero
Output table rows and columns even if all elements are
zero. By default, rows and columns are only output if they
contain non-zero elements. Using this option when watching
for every event on a lot of files can result in a lot of
output!
--exclude <pattern>
Do not process any events for the subset of files whose
filenames match the specified POSIX regular expression,
case sensitive.
--excludei <pattern>
Do not process any events for the subset of files whose
filenames match the specified POSIX regular expression,
case insensitive.
--include <pattern>
Process events only for the subset of files whose filenames
match the specified POSIX regular expression, case
sensitive.
--includei <pattern>
Process events only for the subset of files whose filenames
match the specified POSIX regular expression, case
insensitive.
-r, --recursive
Watch all subdirectories of any directories passed as
arguments. Watches will be set up recursively to an
unlimited depth. Symbolic links are not traversed. If new
directories are created within watched directories they
will automatically be watched.
Warning: If you use this option while watching the root
directory of a large tree, it may take quite a while until
all inotify watches are established, and events will not be
received in this time. Also, since one inotify watch will
be established per subdirectory, it is possible that the
maximum amount of inotify watches per user will be reached.
The default maximum is 8192; it can be increased by writing
to /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches.
-P, --no-dereference
Do not follow symlinks.
-t <seconds>, --timeout <seconds>
Listen only for the specified amount of seconds. If not
specified, inotifywatch will gather statistics until
receiving an interrupt signal by (for example) pressing
CONTROL-C at the console.
-e <event>, --event <event>
Listen for specific event(s) only. The events which can be
listened for are listed in the EVENTS section. This option
can be specified more than once. If omitted, all events
are listened for.
-a <event>, --ascending <event>
Sort output ascending by event counts for the specified
event. Sortable events include `total' and all the events
listed in the EVENTS section except `move' and `close' (you
must use `moved_to', `moved_from', `close_write' or
`close_nowrite' instead). The default is to sort
descending by `total'.
-d <event>, --descending <event>
Sort output descending by event counts for the specified
event. Sortable events include `total' and all the events
listed in the EVENTS section except `move' and `close' (you
must use `moved_to', `moved_from', `close_write' or
`close_nowrite' instead). The default is to sort
descending by `total'.
-I, --inotify
Watch using inotify (default for inotifywatch).
-F, --fanotify
Watch using fanotify (default for fsnotifywatch). fanotify
support for reporting events with inotify compatible
information was added in kernel v5.9. With older kernels
the command will fail. As of kernel v5.12, fanotify
requires admin privileges.
-S, --filesystem
Watch entire filesystem of any directories passed as
arguments using fanotify.
0 The program executed successfully.
1 An error occurred in execution of the program.
The following events are valid for use with the -e option:
access A watched file or a file within a watched directory was
read from.
modify A watched file or a file within a watched directory was
written to.
attrib The metadata of a watched file or a file within a watched
directory was modified. This includes timestamps, file
permissions, extended attributes etc.
close_write
A watched file or a file within a watched directory was
closed, after being opened in writable mode. This does not
necessarily imply the file was written to.
close_nowrite
A watched file or a file within a watched directory was
closed, after being opened in read-only mode.
close A watched file or a file within a watched directory was
closed, regardless of how it was opened. Note that this is
actually implemented simply by listening for both
close_write and close_nowrite, hence all close events
received will be output as one of these, not CLOSE.
open A watched file or a file within a watched directory was
opened.
moved_to
A file or directory was moved into a watched directory.
This event occurs even if the file is simply moved from and
to the same directory.
moved_from
A file or directory was moved from a watched directory.
This event occurs even if the file is simply moved from and
to the same directory.
move A file or directory was moved from or to a watched
directory. Note that this is actually implemented simply
by listening for both moved_to and moved_from, hence all
close events received will be output as one or both of
these, not MOVE.
move_self
A watched file or directory was moved. After this event,
the file or directory is no longer being watched.
create A file or directory was created within a watched directory.
delete A file or directory within a watched directory was deleted.
delete_self
A watched file or directory was deleted. After this event
the file or directory is no longer being watched. Note
that this event can occur even if it is not explicitly
being listened for.
unmount
The filesystem on which a watched file or directory resides
was unmounted. After this event the file or directory is
no longer being watched. Note that this event can occur
even if it is not explicitly being listened to.
Watching the `~/.beagle' directory for 60 seconds:
% inotifywatch -v -e access -e modify -t 60 -r ~/.beagle
Establishing watches...
Setting up watch(es) on /home/rohan/.beagle
OK, /home/rohan/.beagle is now being watched.
Total of 302 watches.
Finished establishing watches, now collecting statistics.
Will listen for events for 60 seconds.
total access modify filename
1436 1074 362 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/FileSystemIndex/PrimaryIndex/
1323 1053 270 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/FileSystemIndex/SecondaryIndex/
303 116 187 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/KMailIndex/PrimaryIndex/
261 74 187 /home/rohan/.beagle/TextCache/
206 0 206 /home/rohan/.beagle/Log/
42 0 42 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/FileSystemIndex/Locks/
18 6 12 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/FileSystemIndex/
12 0 12 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/KMailIndex/Locks/
3 0 3 /home/rohan/.beagle/TextCache/54/
3 0 3 /home/rohan/.beagle/TextCache/bc/
3 0 3 /home/rohan/.beagle/TextCache/20/
3 0 3 /home/rohan/.beagle/TextCache/62/
2 2 0 /home/rohan/.beagle/Indexes/KMailIndex/SecondaryIndex/
When using inotifywatch, the filename that is outputted is not
guaranteed to be up to date after a move because it is the inode
that is being monitored. Additionally, none of the observed
operations are guaranteed to have been performed on the filename
inotifywatch was instructed to monitor in cases when the file is
known by several names in the filesystem.
There are race conditions in the recursive directory watching code
which can cause events to be missed if they occur in a directory
immediately after that directory is created. This is probably not
fixable.
It is assumed the inotify event queue will never overflow.
inotifywatch was started by Rohan McGovern, and is currently
maintained by Eric Curtin and Radu Voicilas.
https://www.openhub.net/p/inotify-tools/contributors/summary gives
you a more complete list of contributors.
inotifywatch is part of inotify-tools. The inotify-tools website
is located at: https://github.com/inotify-tools/inotify-tools/wiki
inotifywait(1), inotify(7)
This page is part of the inotify-tools (command-line programs
providing a simple interface to inotify) project. Information
about the project can be found at
⟨https://github.com/rvoicilas/inotify-tools/wiki⟩. If you have a
bug report for this manual page, send it to
inotify-tools-general@lists.sourceforge.net. This page was
obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/rvoicilas/inotify-tools.git⟩ on 2025-08-11.
(At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
in the repository was 2025-02-16.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
inotifywatch 4.23.9.0 2023-09-23 inotifywatch(1)
Pages that refer to this page: inotifywait(1), inotify(7)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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