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How to Search for Files in Linux Command Line





If you are a Windows user or Linux GUI user, you can search the files with the GUI tool in a pretty straghtforward way. However, on the other hand, in the Linux terminal or command mode, you must use the Linux command to locate specify file in the file system.

In Linux environment, you can use the
find
command to locate a file or folders in the file system. We will explain the usage of the
find
command in details in this tutorial. We will walkthrough the command with explanations and examples.


The Find Command Syntax

Before going into the detail "find" command, we will show you the basic syntax of the Linux find command:


find /path/ -type f -name 'filename'



/path/
is the location where to start searching from. It can be an absolute directory. On the other hand, if you use the shortcut such as
/
, it means searching will starts from the root directory. If you use
.
, then the searching starting point will be the current directory.


- type
represents the file descriptor. You can provide the following searching type:

f: Regular file, such as text files, video files or hidden files, etc.
d: Directory, it means search for directory
l: Symbolic link. Symbolic link is just like a shortcut point to specific file.
c: Character devices
b: Block devices


-name
is the name of the file that you are going to search.


Practical Examples of Using The Find Command

In the following examples, we will show you how to use the find command in the Linux environment practically.


How to search for any files by name, part of the name of file extension?

For example, if we want to search for the file contains the text: "test001", we can use this command:


find . -name 'test001*'







How to search for files with a specific file extension?

For example, If we want to search for the file with the extension: txt, we can use this command:


find . -name '*txt'







How to search for files by name and ignoring case?

For example, if we want to search for the file contains the text: "test001" and ignoring case, we can use this command:


find . -iname 'test001*'










How to search for hidden file starting from the current directory?

You may know that in Linux, if you want to list the hidden file, you may use the command:
ls -a
. As the hidden file start with "." in Linux, So, if you want to search for the hidden files starting from the current directort, you can use this command:


find . -name '.*'







How to search for log files starting from the entire file system?

To search for the log files from the entire file system, that means we are search for the log files with the starting point from the root directory. In that case, we can use the command:


find / -name '*.log'







How to search for files by other file type?

To search file file by character block type from the root directory , we can use the command:


find / -type c






To search file file by device block type from the root directory , we can use the command:


find / -type b







How to search for directories in Linux?

Someimes you may what to search for only specific directory. For example, if you want to search for the directories with the name like "directory", we can use the command:


find / -type d -name 'directory*'







How to search for empty directories in Linux?

If you want to search for the empty directories with the name like "directory", we can use the command:


find / -type d -name 'directory*' -empty







How to search for files by size in Linux?

If you need to perform housekeep on the Linux file system, you may want to locate the files which have file size exceed a certain value. For example, if you want to search for the files of extension: "tar", and with file size exceed 100M, we can use the command:


find / -name "*.tar" -size +100M






Besides, Megabytes(M), you can also use other file size units, for examples:

G: GigaBytes
M: MegaBytes
K: KiloBytes
b: bytes


How to search for files by their modification time?

In Linux, you can also search for the files from their modification time with the parameter: "-mtime". For example, if you want to search for the ".txt" files which is modified less than 30 days ago, we can use the command:


find / -name "*.txt" -mtime -30







Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have shared how to use the "find" command with differnt options and plenty of examples. You can now search the files or directories by name, type, size and modification time, etc. Hope you enjoy the articles. Thanks for reading.