The -mtime option allows you to limit a search to files older than, but also files newer than, some value times 24. I prefer to use xargs or Parallel and a trash command on the rare occasion that I remove files with find. Furthermore, a misplaced delete flag in find can delete results before qualifying them (in other words, you can delete directories in a command intended to delete only files by placing the delete flag before the type flag). It's vital to compose your find command and then verify the results before deleting. By adding a delete flag, you would remove potentially important directory structures. For instance, if you forget to include -type f in a search for empty files, you get directories in your results. Technically, you can use find to remove empty files, but programmatic removal of files is dangerous. How well do you know Linux? Take a quiz and get a badge.Linux system administration skills assessment.A guide to installing applications on Linux.
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Sometimes it's helpful to discover empty files as a way to declutter: $ find ~ -type f -empty You can limit the depth of searches with the -maxdepth option, followed by the number of directories you want find to descend into after the starting point: $ find ~/Public/ -maxdepth 1 -type d
With hundreds of files in a default user directory and thousands more outside of that, sometimes you get more results from find than you want. The find command combined with the -type d option is a better choice: $ find ~/Public -type d
List just directoriesĪ shortcoming of the ls command is that you can't filter its results by file type, so it can be noisy if you only want a listing of directories in a path. home/seth/.local/share/gnome-shell/gnome-overrides-migratedĪs long as you're using the GNU version of find, you can include multiple file types in your search results: $ find ~ -type f,l -name "notebook*" home/seth/.local/share/keyrings/user.keystore home/seth/.local/share/keyrings/login.keyring You can display files, directories, symlinks, named pipes, sockets, and more using the -type option. home/seth/Documents/foo.txt:Penguins are fun. home/seth/Documents/Foo.txt:I like penguins. $ find ~/Documents/ -name "*txt" -exec grep -Hi penguin \ This can be especially useful when you need to search for a file by content rather than by name, or you need to search by both. In fact, one of the options in find enables you to execute a different command on whatever results find returns. Find by contentĪ find command doesn't have to perform just one task. Notice that I don't use 2>/dev/null in this instance because I'm only listing the contents of a file path within my home directory, so I don't anticipate permission errors. The ls -R command lists the contents of a directory recursively, meaning that it doesn't just list the target you provide for it, but also descends into every subdirectory within that target (and every subdirectory in each subdirectory, and so on.) The find command has that function too, by way of the -ls option: $ find ~/Documents -lsģ554235 0 drwxr-xr-x 05:36 /home/seth/Documents/ģ554224 0 -rw-rw-r- 05:36 /home/seth/Documents/Fooģ766411 0 -rw-rw-r- 05:36 /home/seth/Documents/Foo/foo.txtģ766416 0 -rw-rw-r- 05:36 /home/seth/Documents/Foo/foobar.txt If you can't remember the exact name of the file, or you're not sure whether you capitalized any characters, you can do a partial and case-insensitive search like this: $ find / -iname "*foo*txt" 2>/dev/null Use 2>/dev/null to silence permission errors (or use sudo to gain all permissions). When you know the name of a file but can't remember where you saved it, use find to search your home directory. Whether you're on your own computer or trying to support someone on an unfamiliar system, here are 10 ways find can help you locate important data. As its name implies, find helps you find things, and not just by filename. The find command is one of the most useful Linux commands, especially when you're faced with the hundreds and thousands of files and folders on a modern computer.
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