{"id":221,"date":"2012-11-07T16:08:11","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T16:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vickistan.com\/?p=221"},"modified":"2025-09-18T13:37:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T13:37:02","slug":"find-commands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vickistan.com\/?p=221","title":{"rendered":"Useful find Commands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The find command is very verstile, and I use it all the time. Here are the parameters that I use most often:
-name<\/strong> <string<\/strong>> Finds files in specified directory whose name matches (case-sensitive) string
-iname<\/span> <string<\/strong>> Finds files in specified directory whose name matches (case-insensitive) string
-exec<\/strong> Executes a command on the files found (see ls -l example below)
-perm <mode><\/strong> Finds files in specified directory that match the permission mode
-size<\/strong> Finds files in specified directory
-print<\/strong> Finds the files and prints out the filename. This is useful in a find . -exec grep<\/code>
-regex<<\/em>pattern><\/em><\/strong> Finds files in specified directory with name that matches regular expression pattern.
-atime <+-><n><\/strong> Finds files in specified directory that were accessed less than, more than, or exactly n minutes ago
-amin <+-><n><\/strong> Finds files in the specified directory that were accessed less than, more than, or exactly n minutes ago
-mmin <+-><n><\/strong> Finds files in specified directory that were last modified less than, more than, or exactly n minutes ago
-mtime <+-><n><\/strong> Finds files in specified directory that were last modified less than, more than, or exactly n*24 hours ago
-type<\/strong> <filetype> Find files in the specified directory of type:
b block (buffered) special
c character (unbuffered) special
d directory
p named pipe (FIFO)
f regular file
l symbolic link; this is never true if the -L <\/strong>option
or the -follow <\/strong>option is in effect, unless the
symbolic link is broken. If you want to search for
symbolic links when -L <\/strong>is in effect, use -xtype<\/strong>.
s socket<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examples:<\/strong>
Find files in current directory that end in .txt<\/code>:
find . -name \"*.txt\"<\/code>

Find files in current directory that were created within the last hour:
find . -ctime -60

Find 5 largest files
find \/ -type f -exec ls -la {} + 2>\/dev\/null | sort -k5 -rn | head -5<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find files in current directory not owned by root:
find . \\! -user root -print<\/code>

Find files in current directory with 0777 permissions and chmod them to 644:
find . -type f -perm 0777 -print -exec chmod 644 {} \\;<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find files in current directory with owner apache and change to www-data:
find . -user apache -exec chown www-data {} \\;<\/code>

Find all files in current directory that contain string<\/code> and output their names:
find . -exec grep string {} \\; -print<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find files in the current directory with ACLs set:
find . -type f -exec ls -l {} \\; | grep -v \"\\+\"<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find files older than 7 days matching string “vicki_test2 and move to new directory
mkdir -p \/var\/mitto\/data\/vicki_dir && find \/var\/mitto\/data\/ -regextype posix-extended -regex '^.*vicki_test2.*\\.[^.]+$' -mtime +7 -exec mv {} \/var\/mitto\/data\/vicki_dir \\;<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The find command is very verstile, and I use it all the time. Here are the parameters that I use most often:-name <string> Finds files in specified directory whose name matches (case-sensitive) string-iname <string> Finds files in specified directory whose … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vickistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vickistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vickistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vickistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vickistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/vickistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"https:\/\/vickistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vickistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vickistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vickistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}