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Tips on the find command in Linux

It is suggested that you use Python (the pathlib module), fselect or osquery (currently have some bugs) to locate files. The Python module pathlib is the most suitable one for relatively complex jobs. Both fselect and osquery support SQL-like syntax and are more intuitive than the find command.

  1. Find all files with the extension ".out" in the current directory and its subdirectory, and then make them executable.

    find . -type f -iname *.out -exec chmod +x '{}' \;
# or you can use 
find . -type f -iname *.out -print0 | xargs -0 chmod +x

  2. Find files whose names contain "conflicted" and remove them.

    find . -iname '*conflicted*' -print0 | xargs -0 rm

  1. Find files with 0 size and delete them.

    find /path/to/files -size 0 -ok -exec rm {} \;
# or you can use
find /path/to/files -size 0 -ok | xargs rm

  2. Find empty directories. 

    find / -type d -empty

  3. Find files greater than 1G.

    find . -xdev -type f -size +1G

  4. First find files and then pass them to other commands is a very useful trick. For example, you can use the following command to find all R scripts containing the word paste.

    find . -type f -iname '*.r' | grep --color=auto paste

  1. Find files created with in 60 minutes.

    find . -cmin 60

  2. Find files more than 30 days ago

    find . -ctime +30

  3. Find file less than 30 days ago.

    find . -ctime -30

  4. Find files that are exactly 30 days ago.

    find . -ctime 30

  5. Find all files modified on the June 7, 2007 in the current directory.

    find . -type f -newermt 2007-06-07 ! -newermt 2007-06-08

  6. Find all files accessed on the Sep 29, 2008 in the current directory.

    find . -type f -newerat 2008-09-29 ! -newerat 2008-09-30

  7. Find files which had their permission changed on the same day.

    find . -type f -newerct 2008-09-29 ! -newerct 2008-09-30

  1. Find broken symbolic links.

    find . -xtype l
# or
find -L . -type l

  2. Find executable files in current directory 

    find .  -maxdepth 1 -type f -executable

  1. Find files that belong to a user but writable by its group or other people.

    find /path/to/file -user user1 -perm /022

  2. Check file type of all files under the current directory.

    find . -type f | xargs file

-perm mode: File's permission bits are exactly mode (octal or symbolic). -perm -mode: All of the permission bits mode are set for the file. -perm /mode: Any of the permission bits mode are set for the file. a little bit trick about how to understand the last 2 permission criterias. as suggested, think in terms of permission BITs (0/1)

The following command finds all files that readable or writable by the group or (readable or writable) by others.

find /path/to/file -user user1 -perm /066

The following command find all files that readable and writable by the group and (readable and writable) by others.

find /path/to/file -user user1 -perm -066

The following command find all files that readable or writable by the group and (readable or writable) by others.

find /path/to/file -user user1 -perm /060 -perm /006

Find Python scripts in the current directory recursively but ignore those under directories with the name .ipynb_checkpoints.

find . -type f -iname '*.py' -not -path '*/.ipynb_checkpoints/*'

References

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/find-command-exclude-ignore-files/

https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-explicitly-exclude-directory-from-find-command-s-search

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