bash find files by name, extension, or age

Quick Answer

# Find by name (case-sensitive)
find . -name "config.js"

# Find by extension
find . -name "*.log"

# Find and execute a command on each result
find . -name "*.tmp" -exec rm {} \;

Usage

You need to locate files matching certain criteria across a directory tree.

Other causes & fixes

Find by modification time

# Modified in the last 7 days
find . -mtime -7

# Modified more than 30 days ago
find . -mtime +30

# Modified today
find . -mtime 0

Find by type

find . -type f    # files only
find . -type d    # directories only
find . -type l    # symlinks only

Find by size

find . -size +100M    # larger than 100 MB
find . -size -1k      # smaller than 1 KB

Exclude directories

find . -name "*.js" -not -path "*/node_modules/*"

Use -exec efficiently with + instead of ;

# + batches results into one command call (faster)
find . -name "*.log" -exec gzip {} +

# Equivalent with xargs
find . -name "*.log" | xargs gzip