find - search for files in a directory hierarchy.

1 - Simple Search

find . -name file.txt
./file.txt

• find command
• . means it will search all the directory you are in and sub directories.
• -name will look for that name exactly, if a character is different or upper or lower case, it will ignore it.
• file.txt filename

2 - Search ignoring case sensitive

find /home/ -iname file.txt
./file.txt
./File.txt

• /home/ will only search this directory recursively (sub directories)
• upper or lower case name

3 - Search Directories

find / -type -d -name Photos file.txt
/home/user/Photos

4 - Wildcard Search

find /home/ -name *ile*
./home/file.txt
./home/File.txt
./home/My_Files-NEWS.txt
./home/file.sh

• finds all files that have the word file at the beginning, middle or end

5 - Search by File Type

find / -type -f -name Photos *.odt
./file.odt
./terminalroot.odt

• -f only files with extension odt, in that case, even without -f would also find

6 - Search by permission and find all files that have permission 777

find . -type f -perm 0777 -print

7 - Search other than permission finds all files that do not have permission 777

find / -type f ! -perm 777

8 - Search for files in empty directories without telling if it is - type d or - type f it searches both

find MyDir/ -empty
MyDir/EmptyDir
MyDir/EmptyFile.txt

• -type d search only directories

find MyDir/ -type d -empty
MyDir/EmptyDir

• -type f looks for files only

find MyDir/ -type f -empty
MyDir/EmptyFile.txt

9 - Search for hidden folders

find /tmp -type f -name ".*"

10 - Search by size will find all files larger than 10 MB

find . -type f -size +10M

You will find all files smaller than 10MB

find. -type f -size -10M

11 - Search and remove with -exec

find . -type f -name EmptyFile.txt -exec rm -f {} \;

Or with xargs

find . -type f -name EmptyFile.txt | xargs rm -f

12 - Search by Name Within File

find My_Files/ -name "*.*" -exec grep -Hin "Anomalies" {} \;
My_Files/file.txt:1:Anomalies

13 - Searches for ACCESSED (atime) files in the last 24 hours (for more than 3 days, use +3)

find . -type f -atime -1 -exec ls -l {} \;

14 - Searches for ACCESSED (amin) files in last 5 minutes

find . -type f -amin -5

15 - Searches for CREATED (ctime) files in the last 12 hours

find . -type f -ctime -0.5 -exec ls -l {} \;

16 - Searches for MODIFIED (mtime) files in the last 6 hours

find . -type f -mtime -0.25

17 - Search for Sticky Bit Files with 551 Permission

find / -perm 1551

18 - Search for SUID Files

find / -perm /u=s

19 - Search for SGID Files

find / -perm /g+s

20 - Search for executable files

find / -perm /a=x

or read only

find / -perm /u=r

There are more possibilities, you can see them all in the command manual:

man find
find --help

Thanks for reading!

find command shell unix linux