FREE(1)			    General Commands Manual		       FREE(1)

NAME
       free - Display amount of free and used memory in the system

SYNOPSIS
       free [option ...]

DESCRIPTION
       free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap
       memory in the system, as well as the buffers and caches used by the
       kernel. The information is gathered by parsing /proc/meminfo. The
       displayed columns are:

       total  Total usable memory (MemTotal and SwapTotal in /proc/meminfo).
	      This includes the physical and swap memory minus a few reserved
	      bits and kernel binary code.

       used   Used or unavailable memory (calculated as total - available)

       free   Unused memory (MemFree and SwapFree in /proc/meminfo)

       shared Memory used (mostly) by tmpfs (Shmem in /proc/meminfo)

       buffers
	      Memory used by kernel buffers (Buffers in /proc/meminfo)

       cache  Memory used by the page cache and slabs (Cached and SReclaimable
	      in /proc/meminfo)

       buff/cache
	      Sum of buffers and cache

       available
	      Estimation of how much memory is available for starting new
	      applications, without swapping. Unlike the data provided by the
	      cache or free fields, this field takes into account page cache
	      and also that not all reclaimable memory slabs will be reclaimed
	      due to items being in use (MemAvailable in /proc/meminfo,
	      available on kernels 3.14, emulated on kernels 2.6.27+,
	      otherwise the same as free)

OPTIONS
       -b, --bytes
	      Display the amount of memory in bytes.

       -k, --kibi
	      Display the amount of memory in kibibytes.  This is the default.

       -m, --mebi
	      Display the amount of memory in mebibytes.

       -g, --gibi
	      Display the amount of memory in gibibytes.

       --tebi Display the amount of memory in tebibytes.

       --pebi Display the amount of memory in pebibytes.

       --kilo Display the amount of memory in kilobytes. Implies --si.

       --mega Display the amount of memory in megabytes. Implies --si.

       --giga Display the amount of memory in gigabytes. Implies --si.

       --tera Display the amount of memory in terabytes. Implies --si.

       --peta Display the amount of memory in petabytes. Implies --si.

       -h, --human
	      Show all output fields automatically scaled to shortest three
	      digit unit and display the units of print out.  Following units
	      are used.

		B = bytes
		Ki = kibibyte
		Mi = mebibyte
		Gi = gibibyte
		Ti = tebibyte
		Pi = pebibyte

	      If unit is missing, and you have exbibyte of RAM or swap, the
	      number is in tebibytes and columns might not be aligned with
	      header.

       -w, --wide
	      Switch to the wide mode. The wide mode produces lines longer
	      than 80 characters. In this mode buffers and cache are reported
	      in two separate columns.

       -c, --count count
	      Display the result count times.  Requires the -s option.

       -l, --lohi
	      Show detailed low and high memory statistics.

       -L, --line
	      Show output on a single line, often used with the -s option to
	      show memory statistics repeatedly.

       -s, --seconds delay
	      Continuously display the result delay  seconds apart.  You may
	      actually specify any floating point number for delay using
	      either . or , for decimal point.	usleep(3) is used for
	      microsecond resolution delay times.

       --si   Use kilo, mega, giga etc (power of 1000) instead of kibi, mebi,
	      gibi (power of 1024).

       -t, --total
	      Display a line showing the column totals.

       -v, --committed
	      Display a line showing the memory commit limit and amount of
	      committed/uncommitted memory. The total column on this line will
	      display the memory commit limit.	 This line is relevant if
	      memory overcommit is disabled.

       --help Print help.

       -V, --version
	      Display version information.

FILES
       /proc/meminfo
	      memory information

BUGS
       The value for the shared column is not available from kernels before
       2.6.32 and is displayed as zero.

       Please send bug reports to <procps@freelists.org>.

SEE ALSO
       ps(1), slabtop(1), top(1), vmstat(8).

procps-ng			  2023-05-02			       FREE(1)