Linux "find" command - A Complete Guide

Linux users cannot just rely on GUI to perform various tasks in their system. Rather they need to have a good knowledge of the various commands available.

One of the very useful commands for any Linux user is the find command. This command is used to locate files in one or more directories.

Using this command, Linux users can set a specific search area, filter or find the files on the specific area or directory, and perform actions on the files that match the search.

Users can search from several criteria like the name of the file, the date in which the file was created, owner and permissions, the time range in which the file got created, or even the modified date.

Syntax of find command

Let us see the syntax of the find command below.

find [path] [options] [expression]

The attributes in the find command are explained below.

1. [path] - The directory when we begin the searching.
2. [options] - The criteria like searching a file by its name or date or time range.,etc
3. [expression] - The actions which perform the file.

The above attributes are optional and they can be used according to the user’s need.

Examples of Linux find command

Here are some basic examples to learn bout the usage of find command in Linux.

1. Find the file in the same directory
2. Find file under home directory
3. Find files using the name ignoring the case
4. Find directories using the name
5. Find PHP file using the name
6. Find all PHP files in the directory
7. Find a specific file based on the user
8. Find all files based on the user
9. Find all the files based on the group
10. Find particular files of the user
11. Find the last 30 days modified files
12. Find the last 30 days accessed files
13. Find modified files within the specific days
14. Find the changed files in the last 1 hour
15. Find modified files in the last 1 hour
16. Find accessed files in the last 1 hour
17. Find files with/without 777 permissions
18. Find files with 777 permissions and chmod to 644
19. Find files with 777 permissions and chmod to 755
20. Find read-only files
21. Find executable file
22. Find all the hidden files
23. Find all the empty files
24. Find all empty directories
25. Find SUID files
26. Find SGID files
27. Find SGID files with 644 permissions
28. Find sticky bit files with 551 permissions
29. Find and remove a single file
30. Find and remove multiple files
31. Find files based on size
32. To find specific files and delete them

1. Find the file in the same directory

The following command will help us in finding the file named test.txt in the current working directory.

find . -name test.txt

2. Find file under home directory

The file with the name test.txt which is under the home directory can be found using the following command.

find /home -name test.txt

3. Find files using the name ignoring the case

The following command gets us the files with the name test.txt ignoring the case, i.e. whether it is uppercase or lowercase, our command gets all the files under the name test.txt under the home directory.

find /home -iname test.txt

4. Find directories using the name

This command will help us find the directories named Test under the / directory.

 find / -type d -name Test

5. Find PHP file using the name

To find the php files with the name test.php use the following command.

find . -type f -name test.php

6. Find all PHP files in the directory

To display all the PHP files in a directory the following command is used.

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

7. Find a specific file based on the user

To find a file named test.txt under the root directory / of the owner root, this command is used.

find / -user root -name test.txt

8. Find all files based on the user

The previous command displayed a single file from the root directory. The below command will find all the files that /home belong to user userName say for example, ubuntu, under the /home directory.

find /home -user userName

9. Find all the files based on the group

To find all the files that belong to the group Devops under the  directory

find /home -group groupName

10. Find particular files of the user

If we want to find the particular type of files that belongs to the user, say that we need to find all the .txt files of user ubuntu under the /home directory.

find /home -user userName -iname "*.txt"

# Example

find /home -user ubuntu -iname "*.txt"

11. Find the last 30 days modified files

We can also find the files which are modified 30 days back using the command,

find / -mtime 30

12. Find the last 30 days accessed files

Similar to finding the modified files, we can find the accessed files from the last 30 days.

find / -atime 30

13. Find modified files within the specific days

Let’s say that we need to find the modified files which are more than 20 days and less than 50 days, type the following command.

find / -mtime +20 -mtime -50

14. Find the changed files in the last 1 hour

We need to enter the hour in minutes, like 60 minutes for 1 hour like in the following command.

find / -cmin -60

15. Find modified files in the last 1 hour

The files which are modified in the last 1 hour can be found using the following command

find / -mmin -60

16. Find accessed files in the last 1 hour

The files which are accessed in the last 1 hour can be found using the following command

find / -amin -60

17. Find files with/without 777 permissions

To find the files with 777 permissions, the following command is used.

find . -type f -perm 0777 -print

To find the files with 777 permissions, the following command is used.

find / -type f ! -perm 777  

18. Find files with 777 permissions and chmod to 644

To find the files with permissions 777 and set their permissions to 644 using the chmod command.

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

19. Find files with 777 permissions and chmod to 755

To find the files with permissions 777 and set their permissions to 755 using the chmod command.

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

20. Find read-only files

To find the read-only files, the following command is used.

find / -perm /u=r

21. Find executable file

This command finds all the executable files

find / -perm /a=x

22. Find all the hidden files

This command is enough to find all the hidden files.

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

23. Find all the empty file

To find all the empty files existing in a certain path, the following command is used

find /tmp -type f -empty

24. Find all empty directories

To find all the empty directories existing in a certain path, the following command is used

find /tmp -type d -empty

25. Find SUID files

The following command finds all the SUID set files.

find / -perm /u=s

26. Find SGID files

The following command finds all the SGID set files.

find / -perm /g=s

27. Find SGID files with 644 permissions

To find all the SGID files whose permissions are set to 644, then the following command is needed.

find / -perm 2644

28. Find sticky bit files with 551 permissions

To find all the sticky bit files whose permissions are set to 551, the following command is used.

find / -perm 1551

29. Find and remove a single file

To find the file named “test.txt” and remove it, use the following command

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

30. Find and remove multiple files

To find and remove multiple files with different types like .txt and .pdf, use the commands below.

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

The above command removes all the files with the .txt extension.

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

The above command removes all the files with the .pdf extension.

31. Find files based on size

If we need files based on size, say files with 30MB, then use the following command

find / -size 30M

If we need to find files within the specified range, say from 30-50MB, then the command looks like this.

find / -size +30M -size -50M

To find and delete files with a specific size say 50MB, then the command looks like this

find / -type f -size +50M -exec rm -f {} \;

32. To find specific files and delete them

For example, if we need to find all the .txt files with more than 10MB and delete them, use the command as follows.

find / -type f -name *.txt -size +10M -exec rm {} \;

Conclusion

In this article, we learned about the syntax of the find command along with various examples of how to make the most of the find command in Linux. As seen in the above examples, the find command can be used to filter and search the files and folders with various options and criteria.

Being a Linux user, having good knowledge of the find command will be very helpful as we depend on the terminal for most of the tasks rather than the GUI.

If you want to know more about the other useful commands in Linux click here.

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