Useful find commands.
-print and -delete
Step 1: Show matched files (to ensure regex works as intended, -print is default and not needed) Step 2: Delete by appending ‘-delete’
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| find dir1 -type f -path "*/in/a_*b.log" -print
find dir1 -type f -path "*/in/a_*b.log" -delete
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Date and Time
Find files newer than DATE. Find Files NOT newer than DATE
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| find ~ -type f -newermt "2024-12-20"
find ~ -type f -newermt "2024-12-01 00:00:00"
find ~ -type f ! -newermt "2024-12-20"
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Sort files by modified timestamp
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| find . -type f -printf "%T+ %p\n" | sort -r
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find the 10 most recently modified files
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| find ~ -type f -printf "%T+ %p\n" | sort -r | head -n 10
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Regex
Basic Regex
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| find ~ -name "*ekyll*
NOK: find ~/pj/obsidian-vault -name ".*ekyll.*"
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| find . -regex '\./[a-f0-9\-]\{36\}\.jpg'
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The -regex option matches the entire path, not just the file or directory name. If you want to match only the name part, you can use -name with shell globbing or narrow the regex to consider just the filename.
Regex in Path
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| find dir1 -type f -path "*/in/a_*b.log"
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The find command does not interpret wildcards (*) within a file path in the same way as a shell would. If you want to search for files matching the pattern a_*b.log within subdirectories under dir1, you need to let find handle the directory traversal.
Switch Regex Type
To see which regular expression types are known, use -regextype help.
switch to egrep expressions by -regextype posix-egrep:
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| find . -regextype posix-egrep -regex '\./[a-f0-9\-]{36}\.jpg'
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| find . -regextype sed -regex ".*/[a-f0-9\-]\{36\}\.jpg"
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-E uses extended regex support
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| find -E . -regex ".*/[a-f0-9\-]{36}.jpg"
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