Learn Find Command and usages

Learn Find Command and usages

Date Posted: 28-03-2017

Find is a command which is used to find files and directories based on various scenario. In this post, we will explain find command and usage with some examples.

Find a filename called test.txt on the directory /home/pheonixsolutions. The below command search all the directories and report test.txt.

find /home/pheonixsolutions/ -type f -name test.txt

Find filename starts test and extension is txt(say test1.txt, test2.txt, test3.txt).

find /home/pheonixsolutions/ -type f -name test*.txt

/home/pheonixsolutions/test1.txt
/home/pheonixsolutions/test2.txt
/home/pheonixsolutions/test3.txt

Find directory named called dir on the current working directory(for current working directory, we will be using .)

find . -type d -name dir

./dir1/dir
./dir

Find directory named called dir with maximum of 2 sub directories

find . -type d -name dir -maxdepth 2

./dir1/dir
./dir

Find directory named called dir with minimum of 2 directories.

find . -type d -name dir -mindepth 2

./dir1/dir
./dir1/dir2/dir

Find the file which has permission of 644.

find . -type f -perm 644

./dir1/file1.txt
/dir/dir1/file2.txt
file.txt

Execute commands to the find command result. This will list files with full information.

find . -type f -exec ls -la 

The below example will change the permission of the find file.

find . type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

Assign find command result using xargs. 

find . type f |xargs ls -la 

Use find command result on multiple places.

find . -type f |xargs -I {} mv {} {}_bak

Find the files which are older than 3 days

find . -type f -mtime +3

To delete files which are older than 3 days.

find . -type f -mtime +5 -exec rm {} \;

To find the files which are accessed before 5 days

find . -type f -atime +5

Find files which ownership is  pheonixsolutions

find . -type f -user pheonixsolutions

To find files which group is pheonixsolutions

find . -type f -group pheonixsolutions