“All things are difficult before they’re easy.” -Thomas Fuller
How to find files using the Terminal
How do you find one file out of the thousands on your computer?
There are more than a few ways, but today we’ll focus on the find command.
Example Scenarios
find all csv files in the current directory and its sub-directories
find . -type f -name '*.csv'
delete all files ending with .jpg in the current directory, and all files within the directories in the current directories
find . -type f -name '*.jpg' -delete
find all files starting with “word” and ending in “.txt” OR starting with “word” and ending with “.md”
find . -name "word*.txt" -o -name "word*.md"
find files based on Multiple Parameters
find all files in the current directory ending in ‘.jpg’ OR ‘.png’, but not if the file name starts with ‘cover’
find . -type f \( -name '*.jpg' -or -name '*.png' \) -not -name "cover.*"
Exclusion Filters
find all files beginning with “word” and ending with “.txt” that are over 256k in size. jheeezus!
find . -name "word*.txt" -a -size +256k
find all files greater than or equal to 8 kilobytes, except for files beginning with “word” and ending with “.txt”
find . \( -size +8k -o -size 8k \) ! -name "word*.txt"
find any file starting with “word” that ends with “.txt”, omitting anything equal or greater than 8k
find . ! \(-size +8k -o 8k \) -name "word*.txt"
change all lower case files ending with “.txt” and change them into files that end with “TXT”
sudo find . -name "*.txt -exec rename 's/txt/TXT/g' {} \;
breakdown of some of the commands and flags
execute the rename function
find . -name "*.txt" exec rename
substitute “txt” with “TXT” globally
s/txt/TXT/g
include all files
{}
escape the semicolon which ends the exec command
\;
print the results to testfile.txt
find . "*.txt" -fprint testfile.txt
Possible file types are as follows:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
b |
block special |
c |
character special |
d |
directory |
f |
regular file |
l |
symbolic link |
p |
FIFO |
s |
socket |
Now look at the commands below and notice that the -d type is specified.
find all directories in the pwd and its sub-directories
find . -type d
find all directories in the pwd, its sub-directories, and sort them
find . -type d | sort
As with most commands, use man find to view the manual in your terminal.
There are lots more ways to find files, check out Why did no one tell me about fzf before now?