---
syntax: markdown
tags: [tldr, common]
source: https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr.git
---
# truncate

> Shrink or extend the size of a file to the specified size.
> More information: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/truncate-invocation.html>.

- Set a size of 10 GB to an existing file, or create a new file with the specified size:

`truncate {{[-s|--size]}} 10G {{path/to/file}}`

- Extend the file size by 50 MiB, fill with holes (which reads as zero bytes):

`truncate {{[-s|--size]}} +50M {{path/to/file}}`

- Shrink the file by 2 GiB, by removing data from the end of file:

`truncate {{[-s|--size]}} -2G {{path/to/file}}`

- Empty the file's content:

`truncate {{[-s|--size]}} 0 {{path/to/file}}`

- Empty the file's content, but do not create the file if it does not exist:

`truncate {{[-c|--no-create]}} {{[-s|--size]}} 0 {{path/to/file}}`
