Quick Reference

Find

This is a quick reference list of cheatsheet for linux find command, contains common options and examples.

#Getting Started

#Usage

$ find [path...] [options] [expression]

Wildcard

$ find . -name "*.txt"
$ find . -name "2020*.csv"
$ find . -name "json_*"

#Option Examples

Option Example Description
-type find . -type d Find only directories
-name find . -type f -name "*.txt" Find file by name
-iname find . -type f -iname "hello" Find file by name (case-insensitive)
-size find . -size +1G Find files larger than 1G
-user find . -type d -user jack Find jack's file
-regex find /var -regex '.*/tmp/.*[0-9]*.file' Using Regex with find. See regex
-maxdepth find . -maxdepth 1 -name "a.txt" In the current directory and subdirectories
-mindepth find / -mindepth 3 -maxdepth 5 -name pass Between sub-directory level 2 and 4

#Type
-type d Directory
-type f File
-type l Symbolic link
-type b Buffered block
-type c Unbuffered character
-type p Named pipe
-type s Socket

#Size
-size b 512-byte blocks (default)
-size c Bytes
-size k Kilobytes
-size M Megabytes
-size G Gigabytes
-size T Terabytes (only BSD)
-size P Petabytes (only BSD)

#Size +/-

Find all bigger than 10MB files

$ find / -size +10M

Find all smaller than 10MB files

$ find / -size -10M

Find all files that are exactly 10M

$ find / -size 10M

Find Size between 100MB and 1GB

$ find / -size +100M -size -1G

The + and - prefixes signify greater than and less than, as usual.

#Names

Find files using name in current directory

$ find . -name tecmint.txt

Find files under home directory

$ find /home -name tecmint.txt

Find files using name and ignoring case

$ find /home -iname tecmint.txt

Find directories using name

$ find / -type d -name tecmint

Find php files using name

$ find . -type f -name tecmint.php

Find all php files in directory

$ find . -type f -name "*.php"

#Permissions

Find the files whose permissions are 777.

$ find . -type f -perm 0777 -print

Find the files without permission 777.

$ find / -type f ! -perm 777

Find SUID set files.

$ find / -perm /u=s

Find SGID set files.

$ find / -perm /g=s

Find Read Only files.

$ find / -perm /u=r

Find Executable files.

$ find / -perm /a=x

#Owners and Groups

Find single file based on user

$ find / -user root -name tecmint.txt

Find all files based on user

$ find /home -user tecmint

Find all files based on group

$ find /home -group developer

Find particular files of user

$ find /home -user tecmint -iname "*.txt"

#Multiple filenames

$ find . -type f \( -name "*.sh" -o -name "*.txt" \)

Find files with .sh and .txt extensions

#Multiple dirs

$ find /opt /usr /var -name foo.scala -type f

Find files with multiple dirs

#Empty

$ find . -type d -empty

Delete all empty files in a directory

$ find . -type f -empty -delete

#Find Date and Time

#Means

Option Description
atime access time (last time file opened)
mtime modified time (last time file contents was modified)
ctime changed time (last time file inode was changed)

#Example

Option Description
-mtime +0 Modified greater than 24 hours ago
-mtime 0 Modified between now and 1 day ago
-mtime -1 Modified less than 1 day ago (same as -mtime 0)
-mtime 1 Modified between 24 and 48 hours ago
-mtime +1 Modified more than 48 hours ago
-mtime +1w Last modified more than 1 week ago
-atime 0 Last accessed between now and 24 hours ago
-atime +0 Accessed more than 24 hours ago
-atime 1 Accessed between 24 and 48 hours ago
-atime +1 Accessed more than 48 hours ago
-atime -1 Accessed less than 24 hours ago (same as -atime 0)
-ctime -6h30m File status changed within the last 6 hours and 30 minutes

#Examples

Find last 50 days modified files

$ find / -mtime 50

find last 50 days accessed files

$ find / -atime 50

find last 50-100 days modified files

$ find / -mtime +50 –mtime -100

find changed files in last 1 hour

$ find / -cmin -60

find modified files in last 1 hour

$ find / -mmin -60

find accessed files in last 1 hour

$ find / -amin -60

#Find and

#Find and delete

Find and remove multiple files

$ find . -type f -name "*.mp3" -exec rm -f {} \;

Find and remove single file

$ find . -type f -name "tecmint.txt" -exec rm -f {} \;

Find and delete 100mb files

$ find / -type f -size +100m -exec rm -f {} \;

Find specific files and delete

$ find / -type f -name *.mp3 -size +10m -exec rm {} \;

#Find and replace

Find all files and modify the content const to let

$ find ./ -type f -exec sed -i 's/const/let/g' {} \;

Find readable and writable files and modify the content old to new

$ find ./ -type f -readable -writable -exec sed -i "s/old/new/g" {} \;

See also: sed cheatsheet

#Find and rename

Find and suffix (added .bak)

$ find . -type f -name 'file*' -exec mv {} {}.bak\;

Find and rename extension (.html => .gohtml)

$ find ./ -depth -name "*.html" -exec sh -c 'mv "$1" "${1%.html}.gohtml"' _ {} \;

#Find and move

$ find . -name '*.mp3' -exec mv {} /tmp/music \;

Find and move it to a specific directory (/tmp/music)

#Find and copy

$ find . -name '*2020*.xml' -exec cp -r "{}" /tmp/backup \;

Find matching files and copy to a specific directory (/tmp/backup)

#Find and concatenate

Merge all csv files in the download directory into merged.csv

$ find download -type f -iname '*.csv' | xargs cat > merged.csv

Merge all sorted csv files in the download directory into merged.csv

$ find download -type f -iname '*.csv' | sort | xargs cat > merged.csv

#Find and sort

Find and sort in ascending

$ find . -type f | sort

find and sort descending

$ find . -type f | sort -r

#Find and chmod

Find files and set permissions to 644.

$ find / -type f -perm 0777 -print -exec chmod 644 {} \;

Find directories and set permissions to 755.

$ find / -type d -perm 777 -print -exec chmod 755 {} \;

#Find and compress

Find all .java files and compress it into java.tar

$ find . -type f -name "*.java" | xargs tar cvf java.tar

Find all .csv files and compress it into quickref.zip

$ find . -type f -name "*.csv" | xargs zip quickref.zip