command-line programs providing a simple interface to inotify inotify-tools is a set of command-line programs for Linux providing a simple interface to inotify. These programs can be used to monitor and act upon filesystem events. inotify-tools consists of two utilities: inotifywait simply blocks for inotify events, making it appropriate for use in shell scripts. inotifywatch collects filesystem usage statistics and outputs counts of each inotify event.