This article describes how to find files in Linux.

locate

The fastest way to find a file on Linux is by using the "locate" command. If you know the name of the file or just a part of the name you can use the locate utility to list all files / directories that contain this pattern.

example:

# locate myfile
warning: locate: warning: database /var/lib/slocate/slocate.db' is more than 8 days old
/data/myfile.txt

What is this: "warning: locate: warning: database /var/lib/slocate/slocate.db' is more than 8 days old" ?

Locate will only find files which have been added to the slocate database. To make sure all files are added to the slocate database we can run 'updatedb' from a shell:

# updatedb 

or as a cronjob:

 
# crontab -l 
0 0 * * * /usr/bin/updatedb 

You can also run updatedb with the "-l 0" option:

 
# updatedb -l 0 

If FLAG is 0 or no, locate outputs the database entries even if the user running locate could not have read the directory necessary to find out the file described by the database entry. I would not do that on a server but it is very nice on a Desktop system.

find

With "find" you can search for files based on some user-specified criteria. Here are some nice examples:

find a file named test.txt and start at "/":

 
# find / -name test.txt

search the current directory:

 
 
# find -name test.txt
 
 

find all files containing test and start at "/":

 
 
# find / -name "*test.txt*"
 
 

find all files larger than 1 Megabyte (1024kb) and start at "/":

 
  
# find / -size +1024k
 
  

find all files larger than 1 Megabyte (1024kb), start at "/" and only search in the "/" filesystem (don't descend directories on other filesystems):

 
   
# find / -xdev -size +1024k
 
   

find all files in your HOME folder that have NOT been modified in the last year:

 
   
# find /home/myuser -mtime +365
 
   

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