124

I would like to run ls and exclude certain files in the output.

When I run the following command, I get all files, each on a separate line:

$ ls -1
file1
file2
file3
temp

I would like to run this command in a way so that it shows:

$ ls -1 <insert magic here> temp
file1
file2
file3
BeastOfCaerbannog
  • 14,585
Alice Ryhl
  • 1,517
  • 3
  • 11
  • 12
  • -1 Force output to be one entry per line. This is the default when output is not to a terminal – Timo Feb 07 '23 at 15:56

5 Answers5

158
ls -I <filename>

-I: Ignore the filename, i.e. don't list the specified file.

To ignore more than one file add a -I before each filename.

ls -I file1 -I file2

To ignore files by their name extensions do the following, for example.

ls -I "*.jpg" -I "*.svg"
BeastOfCaerbannog
  • 14,585
Sudheer
  • 5,113
  • 4
  • 24
  • 27
  • 5
    If you use the long-form option --ignore you can extend that to glob patterns e.g. ls --ignore="file?" or ls --ignore="file*" – steeldriver Aug 18 '14 at 15:23
  • 3
    you can use glob patterns with the short form as well by quoting the patterns – verboze Dec 29 '15 at 05:42
  • 1
    you can even use glob patterns without quotes, but by escaping the special letters: ls -I \*.jpg (tested in bash) – HongboZhu Jan 15 '20 at 13:46
28

For me, if I use -I once, it works, but if I use twice it doesn't. E.g:

  • This works:

    ls -I *.csv

  • But:

    ls -I *.csv -I *.txt

    doesn't work and returns .txt files instead.

--ignore did the trick for me. This is what I needed and worked:

ls -lhrt --ignore="*.gz" --ignore="*.1"

The above will list files from my log folder excluding old backup logs.

BeastOfCaerbannog
  • 14,585
Damodar Bashyal
  • 391
  • 6
  • 9
  • 9
    quoting .csv in the first form works, e.g.., `ls -I '.txt'`. The reason it doesn't work unquoted is because of shell expansion, i.e. you're telling the shell to list all csv files instead of excluding them. What's actually happening is that it ignores the first .csv and .1 files after expansion, but lists the remainders – verboze Dec 29 '15 at 05:40
  • 1
    Double-quoting worked for me as well. Thanks @verboze – user38537 Sep 29 '16 at 20:41
19

You can also use:

ls --ignore={"*.jpg","*.png","*.svg"}
BeastOfCaerbannog
  • 14,585
Kartikey Tanna
  • 293
  • 9
    This is simply using bash's brace expansion to get three --ignore options. You could have also used --ignore="*."{jpg,png,svg} – muru Feb 14 '17 at 00:27
7

I think that this produces the output you're looking for:

ls -1 !(temp)

Apparently, you need shopt -s extglob for that to work (I have it enabled, so I guess some time in the distant past I found it useful and enabled it).

I guess you could also use grep to filter the output:

ls -1 | grep -v '^temp$'

Using a pipe and filters provides a lot more flexibility, and skills that are transferable to other commands/situations, though you might not be interested in that for this specific case.

BeastOfCaerbannog
  • 14,585
Max Waterman
  • 201
2

I don't believe anyone else has mentioned the use of the --hide parameter with ls. It can be done as such:

ls --hide=*.jpg

If you want to pass in multiple --hide arguments just do:

ls --hide=*some_pattern* --hide=*some_other_pattern*
radhadman
  • 21
  • What's so hard to believe? This is pretty much the same as --ignore mentioned in multiple answers. – muru Dec 14 '22 at 03:31
  • 1
    When I say "I don't believe" in this scenario of English it means "I don't think". You're thinking of "I can't believe". I am just showing there are other options. :) – radhadman Jan 03 '23 at 21:14