Master Linux ‘find’ Command: Syntax, Options, and Practical Examples

Overview

The find command searches for files in a specified directory hierarchy and can perform actions on the results. It supports many criteria such as name, type, permissions, timestamps, size, etc.

Syntax

find [path] -options [-print -exec -ok]

In Chinese the syntax translates to:

find [directory] [search rules] [action]

Key Options

-name : match file name (case‑sensitive).

-iname : match file name case‑insensitively.

-perm : match file permissions.

-user : match file owner.

-group : match file group.

-type : match file type (f, d, l, etc.).

-print : output the matched paths.

-exec : execute a shell command on each match (e.g., find . -name "file.txt" -exec cp {} {}.bak \;).

-ok : like -exec but asks for confirmation before each command.

Wildcard Characters

Common glob patterns used with find: * – matches any string of characters. ? – matches any single character. [...] – matches any one of the characters inside the brackets.

Practical Examples

1. Find by name

# Exact name
find . -name "example.txt" -print
# Case‑insensitive
find . -iname "example.txt" -print

2. Find by directory

# Exclude "code" directory
find . -path "./code" -prune -o -name "*.txt" -print
# Exclude "code" and "codetest"
find . \( -path "./code" -o -path "./codetest" \) -prune -o -name "*.txt" -print
# Search only the current directory (no recursion)
find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*.txt" -print

3. Find by permissions

find . -perm 755 -type f -print

4. Find by file type

find . -type l -print   # symbolic links

5. Find by owner or group

# Owner is admin
find . -user admin -print
# Files without an owner
find . -nouser -print
# Group is mysql
find . -group mysql -print
# Files without a group
find . -nogroup -print

6. Find by time

# Modified within the last day
find . -mtime -1 -print
# Modified more than a day ago
find . -mtime +1 -print
# Accessed within the last day
find . -atime -1 -print
# Changed status within the last day
find . -ctime -1 -print
# Changed status more than a day ago
find . -ctime +1 -type f -print
# Changed status more than 10 minutes ago
find . -cmin +10 -type f -print

7. Find by file age relative to another file

# Newer than aa.txt
find . -newer "aa.txt" -type f -print
# Older than aa.txt
find . ! -newer "aa.txt" -type f -print
# Between aa.txt and bb.txt
find . -newer "aa.txt" ! -newer "bb.txt" -type f -print

8. Find by size

# Larger than 1 MiB
find / -size +1M -type f -print
# Exactly 6 bytes
find . -size 6c -print
# Smaller than 32 KiB
find . -size -32k -print

9. Execute commands on matches

# Delete del.txt after confirmation
find . -name "del.txt" -ok rm {} \;
# Backup aa.txt
find . -name "aa.txt" -exec cp {} {}.bak \;

These examples demonstrate how to combine find options to locate files based on various criteria and perform actions such as copying, deleting, or listing them.