Find cheatsheet

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

#Getting Started

#Usage

$ find [path...] [options] [expression]

Wildcard

$ find . -name "*.txt"
$ find . -name "2020*.csv"
$ find . -name "json_*"

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

#Option Examples

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

#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

$ find / -size +10M

Find all smaller than 10MB files

$ find / -size -10M

Find all files that are exactly 10M

$ find / -size 10M

Find Size between 100MB and 1GB

$ find / -size +100M -size -1G

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

#Names

Find files using name in current directory

$ find . -name tecmint.txt

Find files under home directory

$ find /home -name tecmint.txt

Find files using name and ignoring case

$ find /home -iname tecmint.txt

Find directories using name

$ find / -type d -name tecmint

Find php files using name

$ find . -type f -name tecmint.php

Find all php files in directory

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

#Permissions

Find the files whose permissions are 777.

$ find . -type f -perm 0777 -print

Find the files without permission 777.

$ find / -type f ! -perm 777

Find SUID set files.

$ find / -perm /u=s

Find SGID set files.

$ find / -perm /g=s

Find Read Only files.

$ find / -perm /u=r

Find Executable files.

$ find / -perm /a=x

#Owners and Groups

Find single file based on user

$ find / -user root -name tecmint.txt

Find all files based on user

$ find /home -user tecmint

Find all files based on group

$ find /home -group developer

Find particular files of user

$ find /home -user tecmint -iname "*.txt"

#Multiple filenames

$ find . -type f \( -name "*.sh" -o -name "*.txt" \)

Find files with .sh and .txt extensions

#Multiple dirs

$ find /opt /usr /var -name foo.scala -type f

Find files with multiple dirs

#Empty

$ find . -type d -empty

Delete all empty files in a directory

$ find . -type f -empty -delete

#Find Date and Time

#Means

Option	Description
`atime`	access time (last time file opened)
`mtime`	modified time (last time file contents was modified)
`ctime`	changed time (last time file inode was changed)

#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

$ find / -mtime 50

find last 50 days accessed files

$ find / -atime 50

find last 50-100 days modified files

$ find / -mtime +50 –mtime -100

find changed files in last 1 hour

$ find / -cmin -60

find modified files in last 1 hour

$ find / -mmin -60

find accessed files in last 1 hour

$ find / -amin -60

#Find and

#Find and delete

Find and remove multiple files

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

Find and remove single file

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

Find and delete 100mb files

$ find / -type f -size +100m -exec rm -f {} \;

Find specific files and delete

$ find / -type f -name *.mp3 -size +10m -exec rm {} \;

#Find and replace

Find all files and modify the content const to let

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

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

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

#Find and rename

Find and suffix (added .bak)

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

Find and rename extension (.html => .gohtml)

$ find ./ -depth -name "*.html" -exec sh -c 'mv "$1" "${1%.html}.gohtml"' _ {} \;

#Find and move

$ find . -name '*.mp3' -exec mv {} /tmp/music \;

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

#Find and copy

$ 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

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

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

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

#Find and sort

Find and sort in ascending

$ find . -type f | sort

find and sort descending

$ find . -type f | sort -r

#Find and chmod

Find files and set permissions to 644.

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

Find directories and set permissions to 755.

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

#Find and compress

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

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

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

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