Print disk usage of all files and directories (ducks) with the colors of ls (for macOS).

colored_ducks.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Don't glob . and .. and don't ignore .files
export GLOBIGNORE=".:.." 

# Old ducks with no color, sorted ascending with at most the 50 largest
#alias ducks='du -cksh * | sort -h | tail -n 50'

# ducks with color from ls, sorted ascending with at most the 50 largest
alias ducks="paste -d'  ' <(du -cksh * | cut -f1) <(CLICOLOR_FORCE=1 ls -1d * && echo total) | sort -h | tail -n 50"

# paste creates columns from the inputs with '  ' as the column delimiter
# du -cksh * prints disk usage with a total and human readable sizes
# cut -f1 cuts the first field of every line
# CLICOLOR_FORCE=1 force ls on macOS to output color even if not directed to a terminal (try unbuffer for linux)
# echo total adds one more line of names for the total
# sort -h sorts the lines in human understandable numeric form (i.e. 200MB < 1G). Add -r for the opposite order.
# tail -n 50 keeps only the last 50 lines

# Refs
# http://mywiki.wooledge.org/ParsingLs
# https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/1168/how-to-glob-every-hidden-file-except-current-and-parent-directory
# https://superuser.com/questions/352697/preserve-colors-while-piping-to-tee