find

Walk directory trees and select files by name, type, size, age or permissions, then act on them.

Updated 2026-10-14

find walks one or more starting paths and evaluates an expression for every entry. Tests filter, actions do something with the survivors; the default action is -print. Always give a starting path: BSD find requires one.

Match by name and type

Names and paths #

Test	Meaning
`-name '*.md'`	Last path component matches a glob
`-iname 'readme*'`	Same, ignoring case
`-path '/docs/'`	Whole path matches a glob

find . -name '*.go' -not -name '*_test.go'

Quote globs so the shell does not expand them first.

Entry types #

Test	Meaning
`-type f`	Regular file
`-type d`	Directory
`-type l`	Symbolic link
`-empty`	Empty file or directory

Limit depth #

find . -maxdepth 1 -type d
find src -mindepth 2 -name '*.json'

Combine tests #

find . \( -name '*.jpg' -o -name '*.png' \) -size +1M
find . -type f ! -perm -u=w

Tests are joined by an implicit AND; -o is OR and ! or -not negates. Escape parentheses for the shell.

Size, time and ownership

Size #

Test	Meaning
`-size +100M`	Larger than 100 MiB
`-size -10k`	Smaller than 10 KiB
`-size 0`	Zero length

Modification time #

Test	Meaning
`-mtime -7`	Modified less than 7 days ago
`-mtime +30`	Modified more than 30 days ago
`-mmin -15`	Modified within the last 15 minutes
`-newer stamp.txt`	Modified after `stamp.txt`

+n means more than, -n less than, plain n exactly n units.

Owner and permissions #

find /srv -user deploy -type f
find . -type f -perm -o=w

-perm -mode matches when all listed bits are set.

Act on results

Run a command #

find . -name '*.md' -exec wc -l {} +
find . -name '*.orig' -exec rm {} \;
find logs -type f -execdir gzip {} +

{} + passes many paths per call; {} \; runs once per file. -execdir runs from each file's directory.

Names with spaces #

Tip

find . -type f -name '*.txt' -print0 | xargs -0 grep -l TODO

NUL separators survive spaces and newlines in file names. See grep for the -l option.

Delete matches #

Warning

find build -name '*.tmp' -print     # preview first
find build -name '*.tmp' -delete

-delete is irreversible and acts the moment it is evaluated, so keep it last and preview with -print first.

Shape the walk

Skip a directory #

find . -name .git -prune -o -type f -print

-prune stops descent into matching directories; the explicit -print keeps them out of the output.

Follow symbolic links #

Note

find -L assets -type f

By default links are not followed. -L follows them and tests the target instead.

Regular expressions #

find -E . -regex '.*/v[0-9]+\.[0-9]+/.*'

-regex matches the whole path. -E selects extended syntax on BSD find; GNU find uses -regextype instead. See regex for syntax.