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From man watch:



watch ls -al --color
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up vote 18 down vote accepted

The right command is

watch --color "ls -a1 --color"


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This works! Although it's worth noting, that the --color option has been added quite recently to watch. –  Paweł Gościcki Mar 6 '11 at 7:58
Not in Fedora 15 it doesn't! :( watch: unrecognized option '--color' –  Andy Lee Robinson Sep 30 '11 at 21:56
@PawełGościcki What operating system are you using? I can't find anything about a --color option being added to watch. –  Ikke Jan 19 '12 at 9:22
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You could put this in a script, for example:

chmod +x watch2
./watch2 ls -al --color




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OK. It seems I must accept the fact that it's simply impossible. –  Paweł Gościcki Mar 31 '10 at 15:37
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See this SO answer for usage.

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This only works for the filesystem, while watch applies to a command –  Brice Jan 7 at 15:49
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watch doesn't work with color output and I know of no way to make it do it. You can create your own script to emulate it, though.

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