Linux Find and Locate Cheat Sheet

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Powerful Linux search commands using find, locate, xargs, and metadata filters.

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Find by Name and Type

Find file by exact name

Search recursively for a specific filename.

bashANYfindname

↗#

bash

find /var/log -name 'syslog'

Case-insensitive name search

Match names regardless of case.

bashANYfindcase-insensitive

↗#

bash

find . -iname '*.jpg'

Find directories only

Restrict results to directories.

bashANYfinddirectories

↗#

bash

find . -type d -name 'node_modules'

Find symbolic links

List symlink entries under a directory.

bashANYfindsymlink

↗#

bash

find /etc -type l

Find by Size and Time

Find files larger than 100 MB

Search for large files using size filters.

bashANYfindsizecleanup

↗#

bash

find / -type f -size +100M 2>/dev/null

Find files modified in last 1 day

Use mtime to find recently modified files.

bashANYfindmtimerecent

↗#

bash

find . -type f -mtime -1

Find files accessed more than 30 days ago

Identify stale files.

bashANYfindatimestale

↗#

bash

find . -type f -atime +30

Find files newer than reference file

Compare timestamps using a reference path.

bashANYfindtimestamps

↗#

bash

find . -type f -newer reference.txt

Find by Permissions and Ownership

Find world-writable files

Audit overly permissive files.

bashANYfindpermissionssecurity

↗#

bash

find /var/www -type f -perm -002

Find files owned by user

Search by owner name.

bashANYfindownership

↗#

bash

find /home -user alice

Find files owned by group

Search by group ownership.

bashANYfindgroupownership

↗#

bash

find /srv -group www-data

Find files with missing user

Audit orphaned ownership.

bashANYfindownershipaudit

↗#

bash

find / -nouser 2>/dev/null

Actions and locate

Delete old temporary files

Remove matching files directly from find.

bashANYfinddeletecleanup

↗#

bash

find /tmp -type f -name '*.tmp' -delete

Run chmod on matched files

Execute a command on each result.

bashANYfindexecchmod

↗#

bash

find . -type f -name '*.sh' -exec chmod +x {} +

Locate files using database

Search quickly using updatedb database.

bashANYlocatesearch

↗#

bash

locate nginx.conf

Refresh locate database

Update file index used by locate.

bashANYlocateupdatedb

↗#

bash

sudo updatedb

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