Find by name, current directory down
find . -name "*.log"
Quote the pattern or the shell expands it before find sees it.
find Essentials Cheat Sheet
Linux & ShellThe find commands you reach for every day, by name, type, time and size, plus the actions and combinators that turn a match into work done.
10 cards
| macos: 15 posix: any gnu-findutils: 4.9
By name and type
Find by name, case-insensitive
find . -iname "*.log"
Files only
find . -type f
Directories only
find . -type d
By time and size
Modified in the last day
find . -mtime -1
The sign is backwards from what feels natural: -1 is less than a day old, +1 is more than a day old.
Bigger than 10 MB
find . -size +10M
+ is bigger than, - is smaller than. Units: k, M, G.
Actions
Find and delete
find . -name "*.tmp" -delete
-delete must come last. Put it before -name and it deletes everything.
Run a command on each match
find . -name "*.log" -exec rm {} \;
{} is the match. \; runs the command once per match; + batches many matches into one call.
Combining tests
Match either pattern
find . -name "*.js" -o -name "*.ts"
-a is and (implied between tests, so you can leave it out), -o is or, ! negates.
Modern alternative
Same search with fd
fd XYZ
Replaces find . -name "*XYZ*". Install with brew install fd.