find

find starting-path [options] [conditions] [actions]

Option / Condition	Description
-name "pattern"	Searches for files whose names match the pattern (wildcards are supported).
-iname "pattern"	Searches for files by name, case-insensitively.
-type f	Matches regular files only.
-type d	Matches directories only.
-type l	Matches symbolic links only.
-mtime n	Matches files modified n days ago. Use +n for "more than n days ago" and -n for "within the last n days".
-newer file	Matches files newer than the specified file.
-size n[cwbkMG]	Filters by file size (e.g., -size +1M matches files larger than 1 MB).
-maxdepth n	Limits the search to n levels deep.
-mindepth n	Skips entries shallower than n levels deep.
-empty	Matches empty files or directories.
-exec command {} \;	Runs the specified command on each matched file individually.
-exec command {} +	Passes all matched files to the command at once (more efficient).
-delete	Deletes each matched file.
! condition	Negates the condition.

The following examples use this directory structure.

Search for all .txt files under the current directory.

find . -name "*.txt"
./docs/readme.txt
./notes/todo.txt

List directories only.

find . -type d
.
./.git
./docs
./src
./tmp
./notes

Search for files larger than 1 MB.

find . -type f -size +1M
./demo.mp4
./archive.tar.gz

Search for files modified within the last 7 days.

find . -type f -mtime -7

Show detailed information for each found file using $ ls -lh.

find . -name "*.php" -exec ls -lh {} \;
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 4.2K Mar  5 10:00 ./src/app.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 1.8K Mar  5 09:30 ./src/helper.php

Delete all .tmp files.

find . -name "*.tmp" -delete
ls tmp/

Search for .php files while excluding the .git directory.

find . -name ".git" -prune -o -name "*.php" -print
./src/app.php
./src/helper.php

List empty files.

find . -empty -type f

Limit the search depth. Search only the immediate contents of the current directory (1 level deep).

find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*.txt"

While '$ find' is extremely powerful, when conditions become complex, piping the results through '|' to xargs is often simpler than using '-exec'.

To search file contents for text, use '$ grep -r' instead of '$ find'. For listing files, also see ls.