head
Show the first part of a file
head prints the first 10 lines of each file it is given, or of standard input. -n changes the
count and -c counts bytes instead of lines.
A negative count inverts the job: head -n -5 prints everything except the last 5 lines,
which drops a trailer without needing to know how long the file is.
In a pipeline head exits as soon as it has its lines, closing the pipe and sending SIGPIPE to
whatever was writing, so grep error huge.log | head -3 stops searching once three matches exist.
That saving does not apply to a command which must consume all its input before producing any, of
which sort is the obvious one.
tail is the other end of the same file, and the two compose:
head -n15 report.txt | tail -n3 gives lines 13 to 15.
Sample files used on this page
Every example below was run against these files. Recreate them to follow along.
report.txt 40 numbered lines, each 5 words
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
line 3 of the report
…
line 40 of the report
users.csv a header row plus 6 records
name,age,department
Alice,34,Engineering
Bob,29,Sales
Carol,41,Engineering
Dave,25,Marketing
Erin,38,Sales
Frank,31,Engineering
access.log 10 requests in the standard combined log format
203.0.113.5 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:12:01] "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 512
203.0.113.5 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:12:03] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 231
198.51.100.7 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:14:22] "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 512
198.51.100.7 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:14:25] "GET /missing.html HTTP/1.1" 404 162
203.0.113.5 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:15:47] "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 512
192.0.2.44 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:16:03] "POST /login HTTP/1.1" 302 0
192.0.2.44 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:16:04] "GET /dashboard HTTP/1.1" 200 4021
198.51.100.7 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:18:51] "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 512
203.0.113.5 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:19:10] "GET /api/status HTTP/1.1" 500 89
192.0.2.44 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:20:33] "GET /dashboard HTTP/1.1" 200 4021
bytes.txt ten bytes, no trailing newline, so the -c examples have something exact to cut
abcdefghij
The first N lines
With no flags at all, head prints 10 lines.
Show the first 10 lines of a file
head report.txtThe default count, and the reason head file is a habit for looking at something unfamiliar.
Show output
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
line 3 of the report
line 4 of the report
line 5 of the report
line 6 of the report
line 7 of the report
line 8 of the report
line 9 of the report
line 10 of the report
Show the first 5 lines
head -n 5 report.txt-n takes the count. This is the portable spelling, and the one to write in a script.
Show output
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
line 3 of the report
line 4 of the report
line 5 of the report
Use the older shorthand for the same thing
head -5 report.txt-5 means -n 5. Obsolescent in POSIX terms, universally supported in practice, and shorter to type at a prompt.
Show output
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
line 3 of the report
line 4 of the report
line 5 of the report
Show just the first line
head -n1 report.txthead -n1 is how you read a header row, a shebang line, or the first line of a generated file.
Show output
line 1 of the report
Read a CSV header and the first records
head -n 3 users.csvEnough to see the column names and confirm the delimiter before writing anything that parses the file.
Show output
name,age,department
Alice,34,Engineering
Bob,29,Sales
Take the first lines of a pipeline
sort access.log | head -3With no filename, head reads standard input. Note that sort has to read all of its input before it can emit any, so this stops head early without saving sort any work.
Show output
192.0.2.44 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:16:03] "POST /login HTTP/1.1" 302 0
192.0.2.44 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:16:04] "GET /dashboard HTTP/1.1" 200 4021
192.0.2.44 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:20:33] "GET /dashboard HTTP/1.1" 200 4021
Cut a long search short
grep 200 access.log | head -2Here the early exit does save work: head closes the pipe once it has two lines, and grep stops searching rather than reading to the end of the file.
Show output
203.0.113.5 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:12:01] "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 512
203.0.113.5 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:12:03] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 231
Read from a redirect rather than a named file
head -n 3 < report.txtThe shell opens the file and hands head its standard input, so no filename appears in the output. Identical result, different plumbing: see pipes and redirection.
Show output
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
line 3 of the report
Take the first lines of generated output
seq 100 | head -4Anything that writes to standard output can be trimmed this way, without a temporary file.
Show output
1
2
3
4
Take the first lines of literal text
printf 'one\ntwo\nthree\nfour\n' | head -2Useful when testing what a pipeline will do to a small sample before pointing it at a real file.
Show output
one
two
Ask for nothing and get nothing
head -n 0 report.txt; echo "(nothing)"-n 0 is valid and prints no lines at all. Worth knowing when the count comes from a variable that might be zero.
Show output
(nothing)
Write the first lines to a new file
head -n3 report.txt > first3.txt && cat first3.txthead prints to standard output like anything else, so the shell's > does the writing. The cat is only here to show the result.
Show output
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
line 3 of the report
Several files at once
Given more than one file, head labels each with a ==> filename <== header and separates them with a blank line.
Read the top of two files together
head -n3 report.txt users.csvThe headers are what make the combined output readable. They appear whenever there is more than one file.
Show output
==> report.txt <==
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
line 3 of the report
==> users.csv <==
name,age,department
Alice,34,Engineering
Bob,29,Sales
Read the top of three files
head -n2 report.txt users.csv access.logThe pattern holds for any number of files, which makes head -n2 *.conf a quick way to see what a directory of config files starts with.
Show output
==> report.txt <==
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
==> users.csv <==
name,age,department
Alice,34,Engineering
==> access.log <==
203.0.113.5 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:12:01] "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 512
203.0.113.5 - - [13/Aug/2026:09:12:03] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 231
Suppress the headers
head -q -n2 report.txt users.csv-q concatenates the results with nothing between them, which is what you want when the output is going into another command rather than to a person.
Show output
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
name,age,department
Alice,34,Engineering
Force a header for a single file
head -v -n2 report.txt-v prints the header even when there is only one file, so a loop over filenames produces consistently labelled output.
Show output
==> report.txt <==
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
See what happens when one file is missing
head -n2 report.txt nosuchfile.txt; echo "exit: $?"head reads the files it can, reports the one it cannot on standard error, and exits 1. A script checking the status will see the failure even though it also got real output.
Show output
==> report.txt <==
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
head: cannot open 'nosuchfile.txt' for reading: No such file or directory
exit: 1
Read a file that is not there at all
head nosuchfile.txt; echo "exit: $?"The same error and status with nothing to print alongside it.
Show output
head: cannot open 'nosuchfile.txt' for reading: No such file or directory
exit: 1
Bytes instead of lines
-c counts bytes, and stops mid-line without hesitation. On UTF-8 text that can cut a character in half, so it suits binary files and fixed-width records rather than prose.
Show the first N bytes
head -c 20 report.txtExactly 20 bytes, which here happens to land on a line boundary because each line is 20 characters plus its newline.
Show output
line 1 of the report
Take a fixed number of bytes from a short file
head -c 5 bytes.txt; echobytes.txt has no trailing newline, so the echo supplies one and keeps the shell prompt on its own line.
Show output
abcde
Take the whole file by byte count
head -c 10 bytes.txtAsking for exactly the file's length gives the whole thing, and asking for more does the same rather than failing.
Show output
abcdefghij
Use a size suffix instead of a number
head -c 1K report.txt | wc -cK, M and G multiply by 1024, and KB, MB, GB by 1000. The file is shorter than 1K here, so wc -c reports its real size.
Show output
871
Combine -n and -c
head -n 2 -c 8 report.txtThey do not add up: whichever limit is reached first wins, and -c given last takes precedence over -n.
Show output
line 1 o
Everything except the last N
A negative count inverts the job. head -n -5 prints the whole file apart from its final 5 lines, which is how to drop a trailer whose length you know when the file's length you do not.
Drop the last N lines
head -n -35 report.txt40 lines minus the last 35 leaves the first 5. Nothing here needed to know the file was 40 lines long.
Show output
line 1 of the report
line 2 of the report
line 3 of the report
line 4 of the report
line 5 of the report
Drop just the final line
head -n -1 users.csvThe everyday form: strip a summary row, a trailing marker, or the last record of a file being processed in batches.
Show output
name,age,department
Alice,34,Engineering
Bob,29,Sales
Carol,41,Engineering
Dave,25,Marketing
Erin,38,Sales
Drop trailing bytes
head -c -5 bytes.txt; echoThe byte form works the same way, taking everything but the final 5 bytes.
Show output
abcde
Everyday patterns
Where head turns up in real pipelines, usually alongside something that produced more output than anyone wants to read.
Pull a slice out of the middle of a file
head -n15 report.txt | tail -n3First 15 lines, then the last 3 of those, giving lines 13 to 15. tail approaches the same file from the other end.
Show output
line 13 of the report
line 14 of the report
line 15 of the report
Read the records after a header
tail -n +2 users.csv | head -3tail -n +2 starts at line 2, dropping the header, and head -3 keeps the first three records after it.
Show output
Alice,34,Engineering
Bob,29,Sales
Carol,41,Engineering
Read only the header
head -1 users.csvThe column names on their own, which is what you want before deciding which field number to cut.
Show output
name,age,department
Sample a column from the top of a log
head -n5 access.log | cut -d' ' -f1cut takes field 1 from the first five requests. Enough to see the shape of the data without processing the whole file.
Show output
203.0.113.5
203.0.113.5
198.51.100.7
198.51.100.7
203.0.113.5
Count what head actually returned
head -n2 report.txt | wc -lWorth doing when the count comes from elsewhere: head gives you fewer lines than asked for without complaint if the file is shorter.
Show output
2