Master the Linux find Command: 7 Powerful Ways to Locate and Manage Files

The find command is a must‑know tool for Linux system administrators, allowing powerful file searches and actions.

Interview Question

How to delete log files in a logs directory that have not been accessed for over a year?

Solution:

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

1. Search by name or regular expression

Find files matching a specific name: find . -name test.txt Find all PDF books using a pattern: find ./yang/books -name "*.pdf" Specify file type for clarity:

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

2. Search different file types

Search directories: find . -type d -name "yang*" Search symbolic links:

find . -type l -name "yang*"

3. Search by timestamps

Linux tracks three timestamps:

atime – last access time

mtime – last modification time

ctime – last status change time

Find files accessed more than a year ago: find . -type f -atime +365 Find files whose modification time is exactly 5 days ago (no + sign): find . -type f -mtime 5 Find files with ctime between 5 and 10 days ago:

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

4. Search by size

Use -size with units (b, c, w, k, M, G). Example: files between 10 MB and 1 GB:

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

5. Search by permissions

Find files with specific permission bits, e.g., 777:

find . -type f -perm 777

6. Search by ownership

Find files owned by a particular user:

find -type f -user yang

7. Execute a command on found files

Use -exec to run a command for each matched file. The command must end with an escaped semicolon ( \;). find . -type f -atime +5 -exec ls {} \; Without the placeholder {}, the command would run on all files, not just the matches.

Summary

After learning these seven practical uses of find, the original interview question becomes straightforward: simply run the provided command to delete log files older than a year.