How to find files in Linux with find

Short answer

find traverses directories and locates files matching criteria such as name, type, size, and time.

Steps

1. Find by name:

find /home -name "*.txt"

2. Find by type:

find /var/log -type f -mtime +7

3. Find and execute:

find . -name "*.tmp" -exec rm {} \;

4. Find by size:

find / -size +100M

Tips

• Use -iname for case-insensitive name matching.
• find is more flexible than locate, which relies on a database.
• Combine with xargs for efficient bulk operations.

Common issues

• Permission denied errors: run with sudo or redirect stderr.
• Missing -name quotes can cause shell expansion before find runs.