Kamil Mrówka

I had nice morning today. I learned more about find command.

I needed a quick reference for the find command while working on file management tasks. My current workflow was to google almost all the time. Now instead of constantly googling syntax I spend some time today to practice below commands. Had a lot of fun.

The find command is incredibly powerful but as almost all linux commands I learn has complex syntax that's easy to forget. Whether you're searching for files by name, size, or modification date, having examples at hand saves time.

Basic Syntax

find [path] [options] [expression]

Find Files by Name

find . -name "*.js"              # Find all .js files
find . -name "config*"           # Find files starting with "config"  
find . -iname "*.PDF"            # Case-insensitive search for .pdf files

Find by File Type

find . -type f                   # Find files only
find . -type d                   # Find directories only
find . -type l                   # Find symbolic links

Find by Size

find . -size +100M               # Files larger than 100MB
find . -size -1k                 # Files smaller than 1KB
find . -empty                    # Empty files/directories

Find by Time

find . -mtime -7                 # Modified in last 7 days
find . -atime +30                # Accessed more than 30 days ago
find . -newer file.txt           # Newer than file.txt

Find and Execute Actions

find . -name "*.tmp" -delete     # Find and delete .tmp files
find . -name "*.py" -exec grep -l "import os" {} \;

Multiple Conditions

find . -name "*.js" -size +1M    # .js files larger than 1MB
find . -type f \( -name "*.jpg" -o -name "*.png" \)  # jpg OR png files

Having these examples readily available eliminates the need to remember complex syntax or search documentation repeatedly. The find command becomes much more approachable with practical examples.