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As bioinformatician I know the fact that we usually handle the large dataset and lost in the huge numbers of files and folders. In order to search the missing file a strong search command is required. The Linux Find Command is one of the most important and much used command in Linux sytems. Find command used to search and locate list of files and directories based on conditions you specify for files that match the arguments. Find can be used in variety of conditions like you can find files by permissions, users, groups, file type, date, size and other possible criteria.

Through this article we are sharing our day-to-day Linux find command experience and its usage in the form of examples. In this article we will show you the most used 35 Find Commands examples in Linux. We have divided the section into Five parts from basic to advance usage of find command.

Part I – Basic Find Commands for Finding Files with Names
1. Find Files Using Name in Current Directory

Find all the files whose name is gene.txt in a current working directory.

# find . -name gene.txt

./gene.txt

2. Find Files Under Home Directory

Find all the files under /home directory with name gene.txt.

# find /home -name gene.txt

/home/gene.txt

3. Find Files Using Name and Ignoring Case

Find all the files whose name is gene.txt and contains both capital and small letters in /home directory.

# find /home -iname gene.txt

./gene.txt
./Gene.txt

4. Find Directories Using Name

Find all directories whose name is Gene in / directory.

# find / -type d -name Gene

/Gene

5. Find fasta Files Using Name

Find all php files whose name is gene.fasta in a current working directory.

# find . -type f -name gene.fasta

./gene.fasta

6. Find all PHP Files in Directory

Find all fasta files in a directory.

# find . -type f -name "*.fasta"

./gene.fasta
./cancer.fasta
./allgene.fasta

Part II – Find Files Based on their Permissions
7. Find Files With 777 Permissions

Find all the files whose permissions are 777.

# find . -type f -perm 0777 -print

8. Find Files Without 777 Permissions

Find all the files without permission 777.

# find / -type f ! -perm 777

9. Find SGID Files with 644 Permissions

Find all the SGID bit files whose permissions set to 644.

# find / -perm 2644

10. Find Sticky Bit Files with 551 Permissions

Find all the Sticky Bit set files whose permission are 551.

# find / -perm 1551

11. Find SUID Files

Find all SUID set files.

# find / -perm /u=s

12. Find SGID Files

Find all SGID set files.

# find / -perm /g+s

13. Find Read Only Files

Find all Read Only files.

# find / -perm /u=r

14. Find Executable Files

Find all Executable files.

# find / -perm /a=x

15. Find Files with 777 Permissions and Chmod to 644

Find all 777 permission files and use chmod command to set permissions to 644.

# find / -type f -perm 0777 -print -exec chmod 644 {} \;

16. Find Directories with 777 Permissions and Chmod to 755

Find all 777 permission directories and use chmod command to set permissions to 755.

# find / -type d -perm 777 -print -exec chmod 755 {} \;

17. Find and remove single File

To find a single file called gene.txt and remove it.

# find . -type f -name "gene.txt" -exec rm -f {} \;

18. Find and remove Multiple File

To find and remove multiple files such as .fa or .gb, then use.

# find . -type f -name "*.fa" -exec rm -f {} \;

OR

# find . -type f -name "*.gb" -exec rm -f {} \;

19. Find all Empty Files

To file all empty files under certain path.

# find /tmp -type f -empty

20. Find all Empty Directories

To file all empty directories under certain path.

# find /tmp -type d -empty

21. File all Hidden Files

To find all hidden files, use below command.

# find /tmp -type f -name ".*"

Part III – Search Files Based On Owners and Groups
22. Find Single File Based on User

To find all or single file called gene.txt under / root directory of owner root.

# find / -user root -name gene.txt

23. Find all Files Based on User

To find all files that belongs to user Rahul under /home directory.

# find /home -user rahul

24. Find all Files Based on Group

To find all files that belongs to group Developer under /home directory.

# find /home -group developer

25. Find Particular Files of User

To find all .txt files of user Rahul under /home directory.

# find /home -user rahul -iname "*.txt"

Part IV – Find Files and Directories Based on Date and Time
26. Find Last 50 Days Modified Files

To find all the files which are modified 50 days back.

# find / -mtime 50

27. Find Last 50 Days Accessed Files

To find all the files which are accessed 50 days back.

# find / -atime 50

28. Find Last 50-100 Days Modified Files

To find all the files which are modified more than 50 days back and less than 100 days.

# find / -mtime +50 –mtime -100

29. Find Changed Files in Last 1 Hour

To find all the files which are changed in last 1 hour.

# find / -cmin -60

30. Find Modified Files in Last 1 Hour

To find all the files which are modified in last 1 hour.

# find / -mmin -60

31. Find Accessed Files in Last 1 Hour

To find all the files which are accessed in last 1 hour.

# find / -amin -60

Part V – Find Files and Directories Based on Size
32. Find 50MB Files

To find all 50MB files, use.

# find / -size 50M

33. Find Size between 50MB – 100MB

To find all the files which are greater than 50MB and less than 100MB.

# find / -size +50M -size -100M

34. Find and Delete 100MB Files

To find all 100MB files and delete them using one single command.

# find / -size +100M -exec rm -rf {} \;

35. Find Specific Files and Delete

Find all .gb files with more than 10MB and delete them using one single command.

# find / -type f -name *.gb -size +10M -exec rm {} \;