Command-line Knowledge Base

`find`

Search file names for a specific string

find /path/to/folder/ -type f -iname '*string*'

Recursively search file contents for a specific string

find /path/to/folder/ -exec grep 'string' '{}' /dev/null \; -print

find /path/to/folder/ -exec grep -H 'string' '{}' \; -print

Recursively search content of a specific filetype for a specific string

find /path/to/folder/ -name '*fileType' -type f -exec grep 'string' '{}' /dev/null \; -print

find /path/to/folder/ -name '*fileType' -type f -exec grep -H 'string' '{}' \; -print

Recursively search filenames (including symbolic links) for a specific string

find -L . -print |grep -i string

Recursively search filenames of a specific filetype for a specific string

sudo find . -print | grep -i '.*[.]fileType'

Delete files containing specific string in name

find . -maxdepth 1 -iname "*mp3" -type f -delete

List most recently modified mp3s, including sub-folders

find $1 -type f -name '*mp3' -exec stat --format '%Y :%y %n' {} \; | sort -n | cut -d: -f4- | cut -d " " -f3-

List a folder's symbolic links

find . -type l -ls

List files owned by a specific user

find . -user username -ls

Generate an mp3 playlist

find -type f -iname \*.mp3 > playlist.txt

List detailed file info for file(s) using a search string ¹

find -type f -ls |grep -i "$search"

Display the 5 largest file in the current directory and its subdirectory

find . -type f -exec ls -s {} \; | sort -n -r | head -5

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