FIND ANY FILE IN LINUX HOW TO
FIND ANY FILE IN LINUX FULL

Here we use sudo to overcome permission issues. bin/my.logįinding files with a specific file owner or groupįinding files by owner or group is also very straightforward. You can find files by the inode that is used to maintain the file’s metadata (i.e., everything but the file content and file name). For example, to find files that are larger than a gigabyte, you might use a command like this where the +1G means 'larger than a gigabyte': $ find -size +1G -ls 2>/dev/nullħ87715 1053976 -rw-rw-r- 1 shs shs 1079263432. Most of the time, Linux users will be searching for files that are larger than some selected size. You can also look for file by providing sizes in kilobytes (k), megabytes (M) and gigabytes (G). And, if you specify -size 200w, you’re going to find files that are 200 words – words as in 'two-byte increments', not words as in 'those things we all say to each other'. For bytes, you would need to use -size 189c (characters). If you specify -size 189b, for you example, you’re going to find files that are 189 blocks long, not 189 bytes. Finding files by sizeįinding files by size requires use of the -size option and a little finesse with the specifications. Using the -ls option to display the details is often very helpful. In addition, when searching for files by size, group, inode etc., you probably will want some confirmation that the files found match what you were looking for.

FIND ANY FILE IN LINUX HOW TO

The sections below show how to use many of the other criteria available. For example, if you replace 'tryme' in the example above with 'try*', you'll find all the files with names that begin with 'try'.įinding files by name is probably the most typical use of the find command, but there are so many other ways to look for files and good reasons to want to. You can also find files using substrings. $ find ~/bin -name trymeĩ17528 4 -rwx- 1 shs shs 139 /home/shs/bin/tryme If you want to see the details associated with a file – its length, permissions, etc., you would need to add -ls to the end of your find command. This is the same thing you would see if you add -print to your command.

FIND ANY FILE IN LINUX FULL

This requires using the -name option.īy default, find will show you the full path to the files it finds.

One of the most commonly used search strategies is to search for files by name. bin” would search starting the /usr directory or the bin directory in the current location while “find ~” would start in your home directory even if you’re currently located in some other location in the file system. To select a starting spot, enter it following the word “find”. With find, you can either select a point or start where you are.

This post covers a lot of ground, but not all of the ways that the find command can help locate files for you. Keep in mind that additional options exist. In others, we’ll simply run as root to avoid this problem. In some commands, errors (such as trying to list files that you don’t have read access to) will be sent to /dev/null so that we don’t have to look at them. You can also specify where a search should start, how deeply into the file system the search should reach and how much the search result will tell you about the files it finds.Īnd all these criteria can be handled by the find command.Įxamples of finding files by these criteria are provided below. There are a number of commands for finding files on Linux systems, but there are also a huge number of options that you can deploy when looking for them.įor example, you can find files not just by their names, but by their owners and/or groups, their age, their size, the assigned permissions, the last time they were accessed, the associated inodes and even whether the files belong to an account or group that no longer exists on the system and so on.

Find any file in linux