Oct 29, 2012 You’re in luck, we’ll show you how to find files and folders directly from the command line using two different tricks. The first method is operating system agnostic, meaning you’ll be able to use the search function with Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, and many other unix variations, whereas the second trick for searching utilizes a Mac-only model of finding files from the command line. Related macOS commands: grep - Search file(s) for lines that match a given pattern. Ln - Make links between files (hard links, symbolic links). Ls - List information about file(s). Locate - Find files. Mdfind - Spotlight search. Rm - Remove files. Whereis - Locate a command. Which - Locate a program file in the user's path.
- Macos Command Line Search For Filename
- Macos Command Line Search For Filename Windows 10
- Macos Command Line Search For Filename Mac
- Mac Command Line Search For File
- Macos Command Line Search For Filename Free
Search a folder hierarchy for filename(s) that meet a desired criteria.
Primaries
All primaries which take a numeric argument allow the number to be preceded by a plus sign (`+') or a minus sign (`-'). A preceding plus sign means `more than n', a preceding minus sign means `less than n' and neither means `exactly n'.
Operators
The primaries can be combined using the following operators. The operators are listed in order of decreasing precedence.
Bugs
The special characters used by find are also special characters to many shell programs. In particular, the characters *, [, ], ?, (, ), !, and ; might have to be escaped from the shell.
As there is no delimiter separating options and file names or file names and the expression, it is difficult to specify files named -xdev or !. These problems are handled by the -f option and the getopt(3) -- construct.
The -delete primary does not interact well with other options that cause the filesystem tree traversal options to be changed.
As there is no delimiter separating options and file names or file names and the expression, it is difficult to specify files named -xdev or !. These problems are handled by the -f option and the getopt(3) -- construct.
The -delete primary does not interact well with other options that cause the filesystem tree traversal options to be changed.
EXAMPLES
Print a list of all the files whose names do not end in .c.
Print a list of all the files whose names do not end in .c.
$ find / ! -name '*.c' -print
Print a list of all the files owned by user `wnj' that are newer than the file ttt.
$ find / -newer ttt -user wnj -print
Print out a list of all the files which are not both newer than ttt and owned by `simon'.
$ find / ! ( -newer ttt -user simon ) -print
Print a list of all the files that are either owned by `simon' or that are newer than ttt.
$ find / ( -newer ttt -or -user simon ) -print
Print out a list of all the files whose inode change time is more recent than the current time minus one minute:
$ find . -newerct '1 minute ago' -print
$ find . -newerct '1 minute ago' -print
List filenames ending in .mp3, searching in the current folder and all subfolders:
$ find . -name '*.mp3'
$ find . -name '*.mp3'
List filenames matching the name Alice or ALICE (case insensitive), search in the current folder (.) and all subfolders:
$ find . -iname 'alice' -print0
$ find . -iname 'alice' -print0
List filenames matching the name Alice or ALICE (case insensitive), search in the current folder (.) only:
$ find . -maxdepth 1 -iname 'alice' -print0
$ find . -maxdepth 1 -iname 'alice' -print0
List filenames ending in .mp3, searching in the music folder and subfolders:
$ find ./music -name '*.mp3'
$ find ./music -name '*.mp3'
List files with the exact name: Sales_document.doc in ./work and subfolders:
$ find ./work -name Sales_document.doc
$ find ./work -name Sales_document.doc
List all the file links:
$ find . -type l
$ find . -type l
List all files that belong to the user Maude:
$ find . -user Maude -print0
$ find . -user Maude -print0
List all files (and subdirectories) in your home directory:
$ find $HOME
$ find $HOME
List all files in sub-directories (but not the directory names)
$ find . -type f
$ find . -type f
List all the directory and sub-directory names:
$ find . -type d
$ find . -type d
List all the empty directories:
$ find . -type d -empty
$ find . -type d -empty
Delete all empty directories, this will recurse the tree:
$ find . -type d -empty -delete
$ find . -type d -empty -delete
Search for every .app file (application package) including those not in the applications folder:
$ sudo find / -iname *.app
Apple System Information will have more details: version, and where the app was obtained from.
$ sudo find / -iname *.app
Apple System Information will have more details: version, and where the app was obtained from.
Find files that are over a gigabyte in size:
$ find ~/Movies -size +1024M
$ find ~/Movies -size +1024M
Find files that are over 1 GB but less than 20 GB in size:
$ find ~/Movies -size +1024M -size -20480M -print0
$ find ~/Movies -size +1024M -size -20480M -print0
Find all .DS_Store files in the current directory (.) and its subdirectories and DELETE them:
$ find . -name '*.DS_Store' -type f -delete
$ find . -name '*.DS_Store' -type f -delete
Find all .gif files, pipe to xargs to get the size and then pipe into tail to display only the grand total:
$ find . -iname '*.gif' -print0 | xargs -0 du -ch | tail -1
$ find . -iname '*.gif' -print0 | xargs -0 du -ch | tail -1
Find files have been modified within the last day:
$ find ~/Movies -mtime -1
$ find ~/Movies -mtime -1
Mac mojave os download for external drive. Find files have been modified within the last 30 minutes:
$ find ~/Movies -mmin -30
$ find ~/Movies -mmin -30
Find .doc files that also start with 'questionnaire' (AND)
$ find . -name '*.doc' -name questionnaire*
$ find . -name '*.doc' -name questionnaire*
List all files beginning with 'memo' and owned by Maude (AND)
$ find . -name 'memo*' -user Maude
$ find . -name 'memo*' -user Maude
Find .doc files that do NOT start with 'Accounts' (NOT)
$ find . -name '*.doc' ! -name Accounts*
$ find . -name '*.doc' ! -name Accounts*
Find files named 'secrets' in or below the directory /tmp and delete them. Note that this will work incorrectly if there are any filenames containing newlines, single or double quotes, or spaces:
$ find /tmp -name secrets -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
$ find /tmp -name secrets -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
Find files named 'secrets' in or below the directory /tmp and delete them, processing filenames in such a way that file or directory names containing single or double quotes, spaces or newlines are correctly handled. The -name test comes before the -type test in order to avoid having to call stat on every file.
$ find /tmp -name secrets -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
$ find /tmp -name secrets -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
Run 'myapp' on every file in or below the current directory. Notice that the braces are enclosed in single quote marks to protect them from interpretation as shell script punctuation. The semicolon is similarly protected by the use of a backslash, though ';' could have been used in that case also.
find . -type f -exec myapp '{}' ;
Traverse the filesystem just once, listing setuid files and directories into /root/suid.txt and large files into /root/big.txt.
find / ( -perm -4000 -fprintf /root/suid.txt '%#m %u %pn' ) ,
( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %pn' )
( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %pn' )
Search for files in your home directory which have been modified in the last twenty-four hours. This command works this way because the time since each file was last modified is divided by 24 hours and any remainder is discarded. That means that to match -mtime 0, a file will have to have a modification in the past which is less than 24 hours ago.
find $HOME -mtime 0
Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner, and group, but which other users can read but not write to (664). Files which meet these criteria but have other permissions bits set (for example if someone can execute the file) will not be matched.
find . -perm 664
Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner and group, and which other users can read, without regard to the presence of any extra permission bits (for example the executable bit). This will match a file which has mode 0777, for example.
find . -perm -664
Search for files which are writable by somebody (their owner, or their group, or anybody else).
find . -perm /222
“We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled” ~ Bill Watterson
Related macOS commands:
grep - Search file(s) for lines that match a given pattern.
ln - Make links between files (hard links, symbolic links).
ls - List information about file(s).
locate - Find files.
mdfind - Spotlight search.
rm - Remove files.
whereis - Locate a command.
which - Locate a program file in the user's path.
ln - Make links between files (hard links, symbolic links).
ls - List information about file(s).
locate - Find files.
mdfind - Spotlight search.
rm - Remove files.
whereis - Locate a command.
which - Locate a program file in the user's path.
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Search file(s) for specific text.
Grep searches the named input FILEs (or standard input if no files are named, or the file name - is given) for lines containing a match to the given PATTERN. By default, grep prints the matching lines.
In addition, two variant programs egrep and fgrep are available. Egrep is the same as grep -E. Fgrep is the same as grep -F.
If no file arguments are specified, the standard input is used.
Macos Command Line Search For Filename
Grep stands for: Global Regular Expression Print.
Environment variables
Grep's behavior can be affected by setting the following environment variables
Exit Status
grep exits with one of the following values:
In other words a failure to find a matching item is reported as an error (1)
The `-v' option can be used to effectively invert the exit status.
Searching an entire hard drive with grep can be very slow, using mdfind to identify files containing text is orders of magnitude faster.
Examples
Search the file example.txt, including binary data (-a) for the string 'hunting the snark':
$ sudo grep -a 'hunting the snark' example.txt
Macos Command Line Search For Filename Windows 10
Search the whole partition (/disk0), including binary data (-a) for the string 'hunting the snark' return all the lines
starting 25 Before the text found and 50 lines After the matching text found, this can be a way to discover fragments of deleted files:
starting 25 Before the text found and 50 lines After the matching text found, this can be a way to discover fragments of deleted files:
$ sudo grep -a -B 25 -A 50 'hunting the snark' /dev/disk0> results.txt
Search the file wordlist.txt for any lines that don't include at least one vowel:
$ grep -v [aeiou] wordlist.txt
Macos Command Line Search For Filename Mac
Remove lines from invoices.txt if they appear in paid.txt:
$ grep -F -x -v -f paid.txt invoices.txt >paidinvoices.txt
List all the file links in the current folder - in the ouptut of ls each symbolic directory has l permission at the begining of the permission flags, so grep ^l will list only symbolic links:
$ ls -lR | grep ^l
A less cryptic method is to use find . -type l
$ ls -lR | grep ^l
A less cryptic method is to use find . -type l
'The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth' ~ G. C. Lichtenberg
Related macOS commands:
Mac Command Line Search For File
pgrep - List processes by a full or partial name.
awk - Find and Replace text within file(s).
mdfind - Spotlight search.
https://heavyunder.weebly.com/free-vpn-for-mac-os-yosemite.html. tr - Translate, squeeze, and/or delete characters.
awk - Find and Replace text within file(s).
mdfind - Spotlight search.
https://heavyunder.weebly.com/free-vpn-for-mac-os-yosemite.html. tr - Translate, squeeze, and/or delete characters.
Macos Command Line Search For Filename Free
Copyright © 1999-2020 SS64.com
Some rights reserved
Some rights reserved