title: Find date: 2020-12-28 16:52:20 tags: - search - file - directory categories: - Linux Command intro: |

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

Getting Started

Usage

```shell script $ find [path...] [options] [expression]


Wildcard
```shell script
$ find . -name "*.txt"
$ find . -name "2020*.csv"
$ find . -name "json_*"

Regex reference (quickref.me)
Find cheatsheet (gist.github.com)

Option Examples {.col-span-2}

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

{.show-header}

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 ```shell script $ find / -size +10M


Find all smaller than 10MB files
```shell script
$ find / -size -10M
````

Find all files that are exactly 10M
```shell script
$ find / -size 10M

Find Size between 100MB and 1GB ```shell script $ find / -size +100M -size -1G


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




### Names

Find files using name in current directory
```shell script
$ find . -name tecmint.txt

Find files under home directory

```shell script $ find /home -name tecmint.txt


Find files using name and ignoring case
```shell script
$ find /home -iname tecmint.txt

Find directories using name ```shell script $ find / -type d -name tecmint


Find php files using name
```shell script
$ find . -type f -name tecmint.php

Find all php files in directory ```shell script $ find . -type f -name "*.php"



### Permissions

Find the files whose permissions are 777.

```shell script
$ find . -type f -perm 0777 -print

Find the files without permission 777.

```shell script $ find / -type f ! -perm 777


Find SUID set files.

```shell script
$ find / -perm /u=s

Find SGID set files.

```shell script $ find / -perm /g=s


Find Read Only files.

```shell script
$ find / -perm /u=r

Find Executable files.

```shell script $ find / -perm /a=x



### Owners and Groups

Find single file based on user
```shell script
$ find / -user root -name tecmint.txt

Find all files based on user ```shell script $ find /home -user tecmint

Find all files based on group
```shell script
$ find /home -group developer

Find particular files of user ```shell script $ find /home -user tecmint -iname "*.txt"



### Multiple filenames
```shell script {.wrap}
$ find . -type f \( -name "*.sh" -o -name "*.txt" \)

Find files with .sh and .txt extensions

Multiple dirs

```shell script {.wrap} $ find /opt /usr /var -name foo.scala -type f

Find files with multiple dirs


### Empty
```shell script
$ find . -type d -empty

Delete all empty files in a directory ```shell script $ find . -type f -empty -delete



Find Date and Time
-------------


### Means {.col-span-2}
| Option  | Description                                                     |
|---------|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| `atime` | access time (last time file <yel>opened</yel>)                  |
| `mtime` | modified time (last time file <yel>contents was modified</yel>) |
| `ctime` | changed time (last time file <yel>inode was changed</yel>)      |
#### 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
```shell script
$ find / -mtime 50

find last 50 days accessed files ```shell script $ find / -atime 50

 find last 50-100 days modified files
```shell script
$ find / -mtime +50 –mtime -100

find changed files in last 1 hour ```shell script $ find / -cmin -60

 find modified files in last 1 hour
```shell script
$ find / -mmin -60

find accessed files in last 1 hour ```shell script $ find / -amin -60



Find and {.cols-2}
--------


### Find and delete {.row-span-2}

Find and remove multiple files

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

Find and remove single file

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



Find and delete 100mb files
```shell script
$ find / -type f -size +100m -exec rm -f {} \;

Find specific files and delete ```shell script $ find / -type f -name *.mp3 -size +10m -exec rm {} \;


### Find and replace

Find all files and modify the content `const` to `let`

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

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

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

See also: [sed cheatsheet](/sed)
 

### Find and rename

Find and suffix (added `.bak`)

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

Find and rename extension (.html => .gohtml) ```shell script {.wrap} $ find ./ -depth -name "*.html" -exec sh -c 'mv "$1" "${1%.html}.gohtml"' _ {} \;


### Find and move
```shell script
$ find . -name '*.mp3' -exec mv {} /tmp/music \;

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

Find and copy

```shell script $ 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`

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

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

```shell script {.wrap} $ find download -type f -iname '*.csv' | sort | xargs cat > merged.csv



### Find and sort

Find and sort in ascending

```shell script
$ find . -type f | sort

find and sort descending

```shell script $ find . -type f | sort -r



### Find and chmod  {.row-span-1}

Find files and set permissions to 644.

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

Find directories and set permissions to 755.

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



### Find and compress

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

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

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

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