On a non-existent directory get-free-disk-space returns nil, eg. (get-free-disk-space "/no/such/dir") => nil But if it's done by a relative path from a default-directory which doesn't exist, then the answer is the space in your home directory (let ((default-directory "/no/such/dir")) (get-free-disk-space ".")) => 3705637 I hoped the two answers would be the same. This is with the "df"-running code in get-free-disk-space, ie. no `file-system-info' function. Perhaps absolutize per below with an inserted setq, the diff being just re-indent. (I still think the use of the home dir there is either complicated and unnecessary, or complicated and necessary everywhere. Or maybe better call-process could not attempt a chdir at all if a caller doesn't care about the current directory. But leaving that unchanged as yet.) 2009-07-24 Kevin Ryde * files.el (get-free-disk-space): Absolutize the dir before changing default-directory, so as not to answer about a different directory.