Find Files with the find Command in Linux

Syntax

find [path] [options] [expression]

• path is the folder where the search starts. If you leave it out, find starts in the current folder.
• options change how find works.
• expression is the search rule.

Find by name

find /home/ubuntu/Documents -name filename.txt

The search is case sensitive. Wildcards work if you put them in quotes: -name "*.txt".

Find by name and ignore case

Use -iname:

find /home/ubuntu/Documents -iname newfile.txt

Find by type

-type f finds files and -type d finds folders:

find /home/ubuntu/Documents -type f

Find by size

Files bigger than 100 MB:

find /home/ubuntu/Documents -type f -size +100M

+ means bigger than, - means smaller than. Units are k, M and G.

Find by time

Files changed in the last day:

find . -type f -mtime -1

-mtime -1 means less than one day ago. Use -mtime +30 for files older than 30 days.

More ideas

By permission

find /var/www -type f -perm 777

By owner

find /home -user ubuntu

Combine rules. Use -and, -or and -not:

find . -type f \( -name "*.log" -o -name "*.tmp" \)

Do something with the results. Delete old log files (check the list first!):

find /var/log -name "*.log" -mtime +30 -exec ls -l {} \;

Replace ls -l with rm only when you are sure.

Why use find

• It searches by permissions, owner, size and time.
• It combines rules with logical operators.
• It can run a command on every file it finds.

Quick recap

• find path -name "name" finds by name, -iname ignores case.
• Use -type, -size and -mtime to narrow the search.
• Use -exec to act on the results, with care.