Master Linux ‘find’: 7 Powerful Uses Every Dev Should Know

The find command is a must‑know tool for Linux developers and frequently appears in technical interviews; for example, to delete log files in a logs directory that haven’t been accessed in over a year.

cd logs
find . -type f -atime +365 -exec rm -rf {} \;

The article then presents seven real‑world find usages.

1. Find by name or regular expression

find . -name test.txt

find ./yang/books -name "*.pdf"

find ./yang/books -type f -name "*.pdf"

2. Find different file types

find . -type d -name "yang*"

find . -type l -name "yang*"

3. Find by timestamps

Linux tracks three timestamps: atime (last access), ctime (last status change), and mtime (last content modification).

find . -type f -atime +365

find . -type f -mtime 5

find . -type f -ctime +5 -ctime -10

4. Find by file size

Use -size with units: b (512‑byte blocks), c (bytes), w (2‑byte words), k (KB), M (MB), G (GB).

find . -type f -size +10M -size -1G

5. Find by permissions

find . -type f -perm 777

6. Find by ownership

find . -type f -user yang

7. Execute a command on each match

Use -exec to run actions such as removal or listing; the command must end with an escaped semicolon \; and the placeholder {} represents the current file.

find . -type f -atime +365 -exec rm -rf {} \;

find . -type f -atime +5 -exec ls {} \;

Note: Omitting the placeholder {} causes the command to act on all files, not just those found.