How to find a file in Linux

This article will go through how to find a file in Linux. When working with Linux systems, most of the time you will be required to search for files and directories. In this guide, we will look at the find and locate command which is commonly used to search for files in a directory hierarchy.

How to find a file in Linux using the find command

In the examples below, we will go through how to find a file using different criteria.

Find File by Name

To find a specific file by name we will use the -name option e.g. find -iname "filename". The command below will search for a file named demofile.txt in the /home/itnixpro directory. However, the file name will be case-sensitive.

find /home/itnixpro -name demofile.txt

To search for a file without the case sensitivity, use the -iname option instead.

find /home/itnixpro -iname DeMofiLe.txt

Find File by Type

You can perform file search queries by type by using the -type option. Check the common descriptors used to describe file types.

f: regular file
d: directory
l: symbolic link
c: character devices
b: block devices
p: named pipe (FIFO)
s: socket

To find directories in a specific user’s home directory

find /home/itnixpro -type d

To find specific types of files e.g. files that end with .txt extension.

find /home/itnixpro -type f -name "*.txt"

Find File by Size

Files can also be searched by their file size by using the -size option.
Below are some of the suffixes used to identify file size.

b: 512-byte blocks
c: bytes
w: two-byte words
k: kilobytes
M: megabytes
G: gigabytes

To find files with exactly 0 bytes size under /home/itnixpro directory use the command below.

find /home/itnixpro -size 0c

Check for files that are less than 100 megabytes.

find /home/itnixpro -size -100M

Search for files that are more than 1 gigabyte.

find /home/itnixpro -size +1G

Find File by Time

Files can be searched with time such as access time(the most recent read-write operation on a file), change time(the most recent modification to the file’s content) and access time(the most recent modification to the file’s inode metadata).

Access Time – command used -atime
Modification Time – command use -mtime
Change Time – command used -ctime

Look for files that were accessed less than five days.

find /home/itnixpro -atime -5

Look for files that changed during the last three days.

find /home/itnixpro -mtime 3

Find files whose metadata changed more than five days ago.

find /home/itnixpro -ctime +5

Find File by Owner and Permissions

Search for files in the /home directory that is owned by the itnixpro user.

find /home -user itnixpro

When searching files based on permissions, use the -perm option. Let’s search for files with 644 permission inside the /var directory in the example below.

find /var -perm 644

To search for files with one permission option such as group or user, add / before the permission.

find . -perm /644