Product docs and API reference are now on Akamai TechDocs.
Search product docs.
Search for “” in product docs.
Search API reference.
Search for “” in API reference.
Search Results
 results matching 
 results
No Results
Filters
Find Files in Linux Using the Command Line
Traducciones al EspañolEstamos traduciendo nuestros guías y tutoriales al Español. Es posible que usted esté viendo una traducción generada automáticamente. Estamos trabajando con traductores profesionales para verificar las traducciones de nuestro sitio web. Este proyecto es un trabajo en curso.
When you have to find a file in Linux, it’s sometimes not as easy as finding a file in another operating system. This is especially true if you are running Linux without a graphical user interface and need to rely on the command line. This article covers the basics of how to find a file in Linux using the CLI. The find
command in Linux is used to find a file (or files) by recursively filtering objects in the file system based on a simple conditional mechanism. You can use the find
command to search for a file or directory on your file system. By using the -exec
flag (find -exec
), matches, which can be files, directories, symbolic links, system devices, etc., can be found and immediately processed within the same command.
Find a File in Linux by Name or Extension
Use find
from the command line to locate a specific file by name or extension.
The following example searches for *.err
files in the /home/username/
directory and all sub-directories:
find /home/username/ -name "*.err"
Using Common find
Commands and Syntax to Find a File in Linux
find
expressions take the following form:
find options starting/path expression
- The
options
attribute will control thefind
process’s behavior and optimization method. - The
starting/path
attribute will define the top-level directory wherefind
begins filtering. - The
expression
attribute controls the tests that search the directory hierarchy to produce output.
Consider the following example command:
find -O3 -L /var/www/ -name "*.html"
This command enables the maximum optimization level (-O3) and allows find
to follow symbolic links (-L
). find
searches the entire directory tree beneath /var/www/
for files that end with .html
.
Basic Examples
Command | Description |
---|---|
find . -name testfile.txt | Find a file called testfile.txt in current and sub-directories. |
find /home -name *.jpg | Find all .jpg files in the /home and sub-directories. |
find . -type f -empty | Find an empty file within the current directory. |
find /home -user exampleuser -mtime -7 -iname ".db" | Find all .db files (ignoring text case) modified in the last 7 days by a user named exampleuser. |
Options and Optimization for find
The default configuration for find
will ignore symbolic links (shortcut files). If you want find
to follow and return symbolic links, you can add the -L
option to the command, as shown in the example above.
find
optimizes its filtering strategy to increase performance. Three user-selectable optimization levels are specified as -O1
, -O2
, and -O3
. The -O1
optimization is the default and forces find
to filter based on filename before running all other tests.
Optimization at the -O2
level prioritizes file name filters, as in -O1
, and then runs all file-type filtering before proceeding with other more resource-intensive conditions. Level -O3
optimization allows find
to perform the most severe optimization and reorders all tests based on their relative expense and the likelihood of their success.
Command | Description |
---|---|
-O1 | (Default) filter based on file name first. |
-O2 | File name first, then file type. |
-O3 | Allow find to automatically re-order the search based on efficient use of resources and likelihood of success. |
-maxdepth X | Search current directory as well as all sub-directories X levels deep. |
-iname | Search without regard for text case. |
-not | Return only results that do not match the test case. |
-type f | Search for files. |
-type d | Search for directories. |
Find a File in Linux by Modification Time
The find
command contains the ability to filter a directory hierarchy based on when the file was last modified:
find / -name "*conf" -mtime -7
find /home/exampleuser/ -name "*conf" -mtime -3
The first command returns a list of all files in the entire file system that end with the characters conf
and modified in the last seven days. The second command filters exampleuser
user’s home directory for files with names that end with the characters conf
and modified in the previous three days.
Use grep
to Find a File in Linux Based on Content
The find
command can only filter the directory hierarchy based on a file’s name and metadata. If you need to search based on the file’s content, use a tool like grep
. Consider the following example:
find . -type f -exec grep "example" '{}' \; -print
This searches every object in the current directory hierarchy (.
) that is a file (-type f
) and then runs the command grep "example"
for every file that satisfies the conditions. The files that match are printed on the screen (-print
). The curly braces ({}
) are a placeholder for the find
match results. The {}
are enclosed in single quotes ('
) to avoid handing grep
a malformed file name. The -exec
command is terminated with a semicolon (;
), which should be escaped (\;
) to avoid interpretation by the shell.
How to Find and Process a File in Linux
The -exec
option runs commands against every object that matches the find expression. Consider the following example:
find . -name "rc.conf" -exec chmod o+r '{}' \;
This filters every object in the current hierarchy (.
) for files named rc.conf
and runs the chmod o+r
command to modify the find
results’ file permissions.
The commands run with the -exec
are executed in the find
process’s root directory. Use -execdir
to perform the specified command in the directory where the match resides. This may alleviate security concerns and produce a more desirable performance for some operations.
The -exec
or -execdir
options run without further prompts. If you prefer to be prompted before action is taken, replace -exec
with -ok
or -execdir
with -okdir
.
How to Find and Delete a File in Linux
To delete the files that end up matching your search, you can add -delete
at the end of the expression. Do this only when you are positive the results will only match the files you wish to delete.
In the following example, find
locates all files in the hierarchy starting at the current directory and fully recursing into the directory tree. In this example, find
will delete all files that end with the characters .err
:
find . -name "*.bak" -delete
More Information
You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.
This page was originally published on