"find" - Search for Files

This section provides a tutorial example on how to use 'find' command to search for files in a directory tree. '-name' and '-size' are 2 commonly used search conditions.

If you have a large directory tree with many files and sub-directories, you can use the "find" command to search for file in the directory tree. Here are some examples:

1. Search files with a file name pattern with the "-name" option:

herong$ find . -name *.zip

... list of *.zip files

2. Search files larger than 100 MB with the "-size" option:

herong$ find . -size +100M -printf '%s %p\n'

3. Search top 10 largest files with the "sort" and "head" commands:

herong$ find . -printf '%s %p\n'| sort -nr | head -10

5. Search top 10 largest directories with the "sort" and "head" commands:

herong$ find . -type d -printf '%s %p\n' | sort -nr | head -10

5. Delete matched files with the "-delete" option:

herong$ find . -name *.tmp -delete

6. More examples with "find" command:

herong$ find . -type f -newermt '2021-07-01'      # files newer than a date
herong$ find . -type f \! -newermt '2021-07-01'   # files older than a date

herong$ find . -type f -mtime -30   # files younger than 30 days
herong$ find . -type f -mtime +30   # files older than 30 days

herong$ rm `find . -type f -mtime +30`   # remove older files

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction to Linux Systems

 Cockpit - Web Portal for Administrator

 Process Management

Files and Directories

"find" - Search for Files

 "more", "head" and "cat" - Read Files

 "split" and "cat" - Split and Join Files

 Truncate Log Files

 "compress/uncompress" - Compressed *.Z Files

 "gzip/gunzip" - Compressed *.gz Files

 "xz/unxz" - Compressed *.xz or *.lzma Files

 "tar -c" and "tar -x" - Create and Extract Archive Files

 "zip" and "unzip" - Create and Extract ZIP Files

 "Operation not permitted" Error on macOS

 Users and Groups

 File Systems

 Block Devices and Partitions

 LVM (Logical Volume Manager)

 Installing CentOS

 SELinux - Security-Enhanced Linux

 Network Connection on CentOS

 Internet Networking Tools

 SSH Protocol and ssh/scp Commands

 Software Package Manager on CentOS - DNF and YUM

 vsftpd - Very Secure FTP Daemon

 Postfix - Mail Transport Agent (MTA)

 Dovecot - IMAP and POP3 Server

 Email Client Tools - Mail User Agents (MUA)

 LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)

 Administrative Tasks

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB