find Cheatsheet

Top patterns.

Overview

find is the Unix file-tree traversal tool, present on every Unix box. Five primitives carry most operational use: name matching by glob, type filtering, time-based filtering, size filtering, action via -exec or -delete. Fluency turns "where is X" into a specific query within seconds.

• Name matching. -name and -iname match by glob. Precise file selection.
• Type filtering. -type f for files, -type d for directories, -type l for symlinks. Avoids surprises.
• Time and size filtering. -mtime, -atime, -ctime for time; -size for size. Supports cleanup and disk-debugging investigations.
• Action via -exec or -delete. Run commands on matches or delete them in place. Composable with shell pipelines.

The approach

Start broad, narrow down with filters, prefer -print0 | xargs -0 for safe handling of weird filenames, use -exec for one-shot commands and xargs for parallel operations. Five idioms cover most operational use; memorising them moves the team from manual scrolling to confident shell-driven cleanup.

• find . -name "*.log". Find all log files under the current directory. First move on most file investigations.
• find . -mtime +30 -type f. Files modified more than 30 days ago. Standard cleanup query.
• find . -size +100M. Files larger than 100MB. Standard disk-debugging query.
• find . -name "*.tmp" -print0 | xargs -0 rm. Safe handling of weird filenames; -print0 plus xargs -0 avoids whitespace bugs.

Why this compounds

Each one-liner that lands in muscle memory shortens the next investigation. Find in scripts produces scheduled cleanup; find on the command line produces fast disk-management investigations. By year two, find is the first tool reached for any file-system question.

• Faster cleanup. One-liners replace manual scrolling. Disk management gets fast.
• Better automation. Find in scripts produces scheduled cleanup. Operations scale.
• Universal availability. Present on every Unix box. No dependencies.
• Year-one investment, year-two habit. First year builds fluency; by year two, find is the reflexive first tool for file-system questions.