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Complete Practical Guide to the find Command

A job-ready rundown of the find command—from file search and conditional filters to exec-based delete and convert workflows you can use in production.

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Contents
  1. Basic find Structure
  2. Search by Name and Extension
  3. Filter by Type, Size, and Date
  4. Apply Commands to Results with exec
  5. Practical Patterns
  6. Cautions

Basic find Structure

Bash
find [path] [] []

Search by Name and Extension

Bash
# Exact filename match
find /var/log -name "nginx.log"

# Wildcard (case-sensitive)
find . -name "*.log"

# Case-insensitive
find . -iname "*.Log"

# Exclude a specific directory
find . -name "*.js" -not -path "*/node_modules/*"

Filter by Type, Size, and Date

Bash
# Files only (-type f), directories only (-type d)
find /opt -type f -name "*.conf"

# Size condition (files larger than 100MB)
find /var -type f -size +100M

# Modified within the last 7 days
find /home -type f -mtime -7

# Files not accessed in 30+ days
find /tmp -type f -atime +30

Apply Commands to Results with exec

Bash
# Delete all matching files
find /tmp -type f -name "*.tmp" -exec rm {} \;

# Change permissions on matching files
find /var/www -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

# Change directory permissions only
find /var/www -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;

# Process in one go with xargs (faster)
find . -name "*.log" -mtime +30 | xargs rm -f

Practical Patterns

Bash
# Find empty files
find . -type f -empty

# Find and delete empty directories
find . -type d -empty -delete

# Files with the SUID bit set (security audit)
find / -perm -4000 -type f 2>/dev/null

# Files changed within the last hour
find /etc -type f -newer /tmp/checkpoint

# Compress log files then delete
find /var/log -name "*.log" -mtime +7 -exec gzip {} \; -exec mv {}.gz /archive/ \;

Cautions

  • When combining with rm, first verify the targets with -exec ls -la {} \; before running
  • Restrict /proc and /sys with -xdev so you do not cross mount boundaries
  • For large directories, sample first with find ... | head -20
#find#linux#shell
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