find file metadata flags

Some useful find flags related to file metadata.

Ownership

Filter files based on ownership in find

The -user and -group flags match files and folders owned by a particular user or group (both numeric and symbolic-readable names are allowed).

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File size

Filter files based on size in find

The -size flag matches files of size n.

Prefix n with + or - to match files strictly greater than or less than n in size. To specify useful sizes, use a suffix.

• c — Bytes
• k — Kilobytes
• M — Megabytes
• G — Gigabytes

For example, use -size +4G to find files over 4 GB (i.e., those that can’t be written to a FAT32 file system).

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Permissions

Filter files based on file permissions in find

The -perm flag matches files and folders with a given permission. Both numeric and symbolic permissions are allowed.

Use the / or - prefix to match files with any of the specified permissions or at least the specified permissions. For example, -perm -644 will match any file where the current user has at least read + write access and any other user has at least read access (so, - requires the specified permissions, but is agnostic as to the presence/absence of additional permissions). Likewise, -perm /666 will match files where the current user has read + write access and/or the current group has read + write access and/or everyone has read + write access (so, / requires that at least one of the specified permissions groups matches exactly, but is agnostic to the state of any other group outside of that match).

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Timestamps

Filter files based on timestamp in find

The -Xmin and -Xtime flags match files accessed (a), had their contents modified (m), or had their inode changed (c) n minutes (-Xmin) or days (-Xtime) ago.

All mtime changes are ctime changes, but the reverse is not necessarily true.

Prefix n with + or - to match files strictly before or after the specified time in the past.

For example:

# Matches files accessed *more* than 30 minutes ago
#
find . -type f -amin +30
 
# Matches files modified *less* than 7 days ago
#
find . -type f -mtime -7
 
# Matches files modified *today*
#
find . -type f -mtime 0

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