Mastering the Linux ‘find’ Command: Powerful File Search Techniques

Installing find

The find utility is defined by the POSIX standard and is included by default on Linux, BSD, and macOS systems. Most distributions ship the GNU findutils package, which is widely used and easy to install.

Search by name

Use -name for case‑sensitive matches and -iname for case‑insensitive matches. Provide the directory to search and the pattern in quotes.

$ find ~ -name "foo"
/home/tux/Documents/examples/foo

$ find ~ -iname "foo"
/home/tux/Documents/examples/foo

Wildcards

Shell globbing can be used to broaden the search. * matches any number of characters, while ? matches a single character.

$ find ~ -iname "foo*"
/home/tux/Documents/examples/foo
/home/tux/Documents/examples/foo.xml

$ find ~ -iname "foo*.???"
/home/tux/Documents/examples/foo.xml

Regular expressions

The -regex and -iregex options apply a regular expression to the entire path, not just the filename. Use them when you need pattern matching across directory components.

$ find ~ -iregex ".*foo"
/home/tux/Documents/examples/foo

Finding recently modified files

Use -mtime with a negative number to find files modified within the last N days. Combine +N and -N to specify a range.

$ find ~ -mtime -7
# lists files changed in the last 7 days

$ find ~ -mtime +1 -mtime -7
# lists files changed more than 1 day ago but less than 7 days ago

Limiting by file type

The -type option filters results by file type. Common type letters are: d – directory f – regular file l – symbolic link s – socket p – FIFO (named pipe) b – block device

Examples:

$ find ~ -type d -name "Doc*"
/home/tux/Documents

$ find ~ -type f -name "Doc*"
/home/tux/Documents/DocExample.txt

Controlling search depth

By default find searches recursively. Use -maxdepth to limit how deep it descends and -mindepth to require a minimum depth.

$ find /usr -maxdepth 2 -iname "*xml"
# limits the search to two directory levels

$ find /usr -mindepth 8 -iname "*xml"
# starts reporting results only after eight levels

This quick reference demonstrates the most common find options for locating files efficiently on POSIX‑compatible systems.