Practical examples of Unix/Linux "Find" command for Everyone

Practical examples of "Find" command  for Everyone

1. Find a file name called javac

find / -name javac

2. Find a file name containing  GPG

find / -name *GPG*

3. Find files with modification time is more than 7 days 

find . -type f -mtime +7 -name {} \;

4. Find files with accessed time is more than 7 days 

find . -type f -atime +7 -name {} \;

5. Find files which are changed more than 7 days 

find . -type f -ctime +7 -name {} \;

6. Find all empty file within the current directory

find . -type f -empty

7. Find files with .jpg extension in current directory and delete them. We can achieve this with -exec aswell.

find . -name "*.jpg" -delete

8. Find all directories whose name is test in root directory

find / -type d -name test

9. Find all the files whose permissions are 755.

find . -type f -perm 0755 -print

10. Find all the files without permission 755.

find / -type f ! -perm 755

11. Find Directories with 777 Permissions and change their permission to 755

find . -type d -perm 777 -print -exec chmod 755 {} \;

Example:

[root@unisonunix02 test]# mkdir test2 ; chmod 777 test2
[root@unisonunix02 test]# ls -ld .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 19 Oct  9 10:39 .
[root@unisonunix02 test]#
[root@unisonunix02 test]# ls -latr
total 4
drwxrwxrwt. 11 root root 4096 Oct  9 10:37 ..
drwxrwxrwx   2 root root    6 Oct  9 10:39 test2
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root   19 Oct  9 10:39 .
[root@unisonunix02 test]#
[root@unisonunix02 test]# find . -type d -perm 777 -print -exec chmod 755 {} \;./test2
[root@unisonunix02 test]# ls -latr
total 4
drwxrwxrwt. 11 root root 4096 Oct  9 10:37 ..
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root    6 Oct  9 10:39 test2
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root   19 Oct  9 10:39 .
[root@unisonunix02 test]#

12. To find all file called test under current root directory of owner root.

find . -user root -name test

Example:

[root@unisonunix02 test]# touch test2/test
[root@unisonunix02 test]# find . -user root -name test./test2/test
[root@unisonunix02 test]#

To find all files that belongs to user nginx under current directory.

find . -user nginx

Example:

[root@unisonunix02 test]# ls -la test2/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root  root  31 Oct  9 10:46 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root  root  19 Oct  9 10:39 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root   0 Oct  9 10:44 test
-rw-r--r-- 1 nginx nginx  0 Oct  9 10:46 test2
[root@unisonunix02 test]# find . -user nginx
./test2/test2
[root@unisonunix02 test]#

13. To find all files that belongs to group root under current directory.

Example:

[root@unisonunix02 test]# ls -la test2/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root  root  31 Oct  9 10:46 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root  root  19 Oct  9 10:39 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root   0 Oct  9 10:44 test
-rw-r--r-- 1 nginx nginx  0 Oct  9 10:46 test2
[root@unisonunix02 test]# find . -user nginx./test2/test2
[root@unisonunix02 test]#
[root@unisonunix02 test]# find . -group root
../test2./test2/test
[root@unisonunix02 test]#

14. To find all the files which are modified more than 60 days back and less than 100 days.

find . -mtime +50 -mtime -100

Example:

[root@unisonunix02 tmp]# find . -mtime +50 -mtime -100
./systemd-private-XXXXXXXXX-amkkJR
./systemd-private-XXXXXXX-amkkJR/tmp
[root@unisonunix02 tmp]#

15. To find all the files which are changed in last 1 hour.

find . -cmin -60

Example:

[root@unisonunix02 tmp]# find . -cmin -60
../test./test/test2
./test/test2/test
./test/test2/test2

16. To find all files less than 2MB.

find . -size -2M

Example:

[root@unisonunix02 tmp]# find . -size -2M
.
./.font-unix
./.Test-unix
./.XIM-unix
./.ICE-unix
./.X11-unix

17. To find all files less than 6MB and greater than 2MB.

find . -size +2M -size -6M

Example:

[root@unisonunix02 tmp]# find . -size +2M  -size -6M
./agent.rpm
[root@unisonunix02 tmp]#

18. Find compressed Files with modification time more than 7 days with their attributes

find . -type f -mtime +7 -name '*.gz' -exec ls -latr {} \;

19. Find compressed Files with modification time more than 7 days which their size in human readable format

find . -type f -mtime +7 -name '*.gz' -exec ls -lh {} \;

20. Find files with modification time more than 7 days  and copy them to another folder.

 find . -type f -mtime +7 -name '*.gz' -exec cp -pr {} /backup/ \;

21. Find files with modification time more than 7 days  and copy them to another server.

 find . -type f -mtime +7 -name '*.gz' -exec scp -pr {} unisonunix01:/apicbackup/ \;