35 Practical Examples of Linux Find Command

http://www.tecmint.com/35-practical-examples-of-linux-find-command/

The Linux Find Command is one of the most important and much used command in Linux sytems. Find command used to search and locate list of files and directories based on conditions you specify for files that match the arguments. Find can be used in variety of conditions like you can find files by permissions, users, groups, file type, date, size and other possible criteria.

Through this article we are sharing our day-to-day Linux find command experience and its usage in the form of examples. In this article we will show you the most used 35 Find Commands examples in Linux. We have divided the section into Five parts from basic to advance usage of find command.

1. Part I: Basic Find Commands for Finding Files with Names
2. Part II: Find Files Based on their Permissions
3. Part III: Search Files Based On Owners and Groups
4. Part IV: Find Files and Directories Based on Date and Time
5. Part V: Find Files and Directories Based on Size

Part I – Basic Find Commands for Finding Files with Names

1. Find Files Using Name in Current Directory

Find all the files whose name is tecmint.txt in a current working directory.

# find . -name tecmint.txt./tecmint.txt

2. Find Files Under Home Directory

Find all the files under /home directory with name tecmint.txt.

# find /home -name tecmint.txt/home/tecmint.txt

3. Find Files Using Name and Ignoring Case

Find all the files whose name is tecmint.txt and contains both capital and small letters in/home directory.

# find /home -iname tecmint.txt./tecmint.txt./Tecmint.txt

4. Find Directories Using Name

Find all directories whose name is Tecmint in / directory.

# find / -type d -name Tecmint/Tecmint

5. Find PHP Files Using Name

Find all php files whose name is tecmint.php in a current working directory.

# find . -type f -name tecmint.php./tecmint.php

6. Find all PHP Files in Directory

Find all php files in a directory.

# find . -type f -name "*.php"./tecmint.php./login.php./index.php

Part II – Find Files Based on their Permissions

7. Find Files With 777 Permissions

Find all the files whose permissions are 777.

# find . -type f -perm 0777 -print

8. Find Files Without 777 Permissions

Find all the files without permission 777.

# find / -type f ! -perm 777

9. Find SGID Files with 644 Permissions

Find all the SGID bit files whose permissions set to 644.

# find / -perm 2644

10. Find Sticky Bit Files with 551 Permissions

Find all the Sticky Bit set files whose permission are 551.

# find / -perm 1551

11. Find SUID Files

Find all SUID set files.

find / -perm /u=s

12. Find SGID Files

Find all SGID set files.

# find / -perm /g+s

13. Find Read Only Files

Find all Read Only files.

# find / -perm /u=r

14. Find Executable Files

Find all Executable files.

# find / -perm /a=x

15. Find Files with 777 Permissions and Chmod to 644

Find all 777 permission files and use chmod command to set permissions to 644.

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

16. Find Directories with 777 Permissions and Chmod to 755

Find all 777 permission directories and use chmod command to set permissions to 755.

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

17. Find and remove single File

To find a single file called tecmint.txt and remove it.

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

18. Find and remove Multiple File

To find and remove multiple files such as .mp3 or .txt, then use.

# find . -type f -name "*.txt" -exec rm -f {} \;OR# find . -type f -name "*.mp3" -exec rm -f {} \;

19. Find all Empty Files

To file all empty files under certain path.

# find /tmp -type d -empty

21. File all Hidden Files

To find all hidden files, use below command.

# find /tmp -type f -name ".*"

Part III – Search Files Based On Owners and Groups