Linux find Command
About
The find
command returns the file paths of files which match the search criteria. Find searches by file name and file meta data (size, time, owner, etc). To search based on file content, use grep.
Syntax:
find <options> <starting path> <expression>
options
attribute will control the behavior and optimization method of the find process.starting path
attribute will define the top level directory where find begins filtering.expression
attribute controls the tests that search the directory hierarchy to produce output.
Examples
Find by name
Find all case-insensitive files named linux.odt
in or under the /
directory:
find / -iname linux.odt
Find all case-sensitive files with the .log
extension in or under the /home/username/
directory:
find /home/username/ -name "*.log"
Find all case-sensitive files with the .log
extension in or under the current directory:
find . -name *backup*
Name Types
name
Case sensitive name.
iname
Case insensitive name.
Find by type
find / -type f
File Types
f
regular file
d
directory
l
symbolic link
c
character devices
b
block devices
Find by size
find / -size +1000MB
Output results to a file
find /etc -type f -name "*.conf" > conf_search.txt