Mount Output in Columns: Formatted Output for Mount List

Scanning a long list of mounted filesystems in the terminal can get messy fast. Piping mount through column -t turns that wall of text into a tidy, aligned table that is much easier to read and grep.

The Command

mount | column -t

Example Output

/dev/nvme2n1  on  /data1  type  ext4  (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
/dev/nvme1n1  on  /data2  type  ext4  (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
devtmpfs      on  /dev    type  devtmpfs  (rw,nosuid,mode=755)
proc          on  /proc   type  proc  (rw,nosuid,relatime)
sysfs         on  /sys    type  sysfs  (rw,nosuid,relatime)
devpts        on  /dev/pts  type  devpts  (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime)

What Each Column Tells You

• Device – the block device or pseudo-filesystem backing the mount (for example, /dev/nvme2n1).
• Mount point – the directory where the filesystem is attached in the tree.
• Type – the filesystem driver in use (ext4, proc, sysfs, etc.).
• Options – mount flags such as rw, nosuid, noexec, and filesystem-specific settings like data=ordered.

Why Use column -t?

The column utility (part of the util-linux package on most distributions) reads whitespace-delimited input and pads each field so columns line up. The -t flag stands for “table” and is the most common option. It is especially handy when:

• You are troubleshooting a mount issue and need to compare options across several devices.
• You are writing a quick script and want human-readable output in a log.
• You are sharing a screenshot of your mount table in a ticket or chat.

Quick Variations

# Show only ext4 mounts, formatted
mount | grep 'type ext4' | column -t

# Add a header row
printf '%-15s %-10s %-10s %s\n' "DEVICE" "MOUNT" "TYPE" "OPTIONS"
mount | column -t

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