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Create a file of any size

Written byPhuoc Nguyen

Created

19 Mar, 2021

Last updated

08 Sep, 2022

Tags

macOS

Contributors

Sometimes we need big files for testing purposes, without any concern for the files' content. For example, when testing uploads, downloads & responding to changes in network performance, we are likely to want files of various sizes.

macOS comes with a helpful utility command to create a file of any size over 512 bytes called `mkfile`:

shell

$ mkfile FILE_SIZE FILE_NAME

In the `FILE_SIZE` option, we can optionally use a suffixes to note the unit of the value `b` - bytes (the deafult), `k` - kilobytes, `m` - megabytes or `g` - gigabytes.

For example, the following command produces an empty two gigabyte file named `big-file.ext`:

shell

$ mkfile 2g big-file.ext

Note the following multiplication factors are applied to the `FILE_SIZE` value:

Unit	Factor	Examples
`b`	512	For 512 bytes: `1b`, for 1kb (1024 bytes): `2b`
`k`	1024	For 1kb (1024 bytes): `1k`, for 1mb (1,048,576 bytes): `1024k`
`m`	1048576	For 1mb (1,048,576 bytes): `1m`, for 1gb (1,073,741,824 bytes): `1024m`
`g`	1073741824	For 1mb (1,073,741,824 bytes): `1g`, for 2gb (2,147,483,648 bytes): `1g`

See the man page for `mkfile` for more information.

shell

$ man mkfile

#See also

Create a big file on Linux

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Create a file of any size

#See also

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