Linux sort file by time

How to Find and Sort Files Based on Modification Date and Time in Linux

Usually, we are in habit of saving a lot of information in form of files on our system. Some, hidden files, some kept in a separate folder created for our ease of understanding, while some as it is. But, this whole stuff fills our directories; usually desktop, making it look like a mess. But, the problem arises when we need to search for a particular file modified on particular date and time in this huge collection.

Find and Sort Files by Date and Time in Linux

People comfortable with GUI’s can find it using File Manager, which lists files in long listing format, making it easy to figure out what we wanted, but those users having habit of black screens, or even anyone working on servers which are devoid of GUI’s would want a simple command or set of commands that could ease out their search.

Real beauty of Linux shows here, as Linux has a collection of commands which if used separately or together can help to search for a file, or sort a collection of files according to their name, date of modification, time of creation, or even any filter you could think of applying to get your result.

Here, we will unveil the real strength of Linux by examining a set of commands which can help sorting a file or even a list of files by Date and Time.

Linux Utilities to Sort Files in Linux

Some basic Linux command line utilities that are just sufficient for sorting a directory based on Date and Time are:

ls command

ls – Listing contents of directory, this utility can list the files and directories and can even list all the status information about them including: date and time of modification or access, permissions, size, owner, group etc.

We’ve already covered many articles on Linux ls command and sort command, you can find them below:

sort command

sort – This command can be used to sort the output of any search just by any field or any particular column of the field.

We’ve already covered two articles on Linux sort command, you can find them below:

These commands are in themselves very powerful commands to master if you work on black screens and have to deal with lots of files, just to get the one you want.

Some Ways to Sort Files using Date and Time

Below are the list of commands to sort based on Date and Time.

1. List Files Based on Modification Time

The below command lists files in long listing format, and sorts files based on modification time, newest first. To sort in reverse order, use ‘-r’ switch with this command.

2. List Files Based on Last Access Time

Listing of files in directory based on last access time, i.e. based on time the file was last accessed, not modified.

3. List Files Based on Last Modification Time

Listing of files in directory based on last modification time of file’s status information, or the ‘ctime’ . This command would list that file first whose any status information like: owner, group, permissions, size etc has been recently changed.

If ‘-a’ switch is used with above commands, they can list and sort even the hidden files in current directory, and ‘-r’ switch lists the output in reverse order.

For more in-depth sorting, like sorting on Output of find command, however ls can also be used, but there ‘sort’ proves more helpful as the output may not have only file name but any fields desired by user.

Below commands show usage of sort with find command to sort the list of files based on Date and Time.

To learn more about find command, follow this link: 35 Practical Examples of ‘find’ Command in Linux

4. Sorting Files based on Month

Here, we use find command to find all files in root (‘/’) directory and then print the result as: Month in which file was accessed and then filename. Of that complete result, here we list out top 11 entries.

The below command sorts the output using key as first field, specified by ‘-k1’ and then it sorts on Month as specified by ‘M’ ahead of it.

5. Sort Files Based on Date

Here, again we use find command to find all the files in root directory, but now we will print the result as: last date the file was accessed, last time the file was accessed and then filename. Of that we take out top 11 entries.

The below sort command first sorts on basis of last digit of the year, then sorts on basis of last digit of month in reverse order and finally sorts on basis of first field. Here, ‘1.8‘ means 8th column of first field and ‘n’ ahead of it means numerical sort, while ‘r’ indicates reverse order sorting.

6. Sorting Files Based on Time

Here, again we use find command to list out top 11 files in root directory and print the result in format: last time file was accessed and then filename.

The below command sorts the output based on first column of the first field of the output which is first digit of hour.

7. Sorting Ouptut of ls -l based on Date

This command sorts the output of ‘ls -l’ command based on 6th field month wise, then based on 7th field which is date, numerically.

Conclusion

Likewise, by having some knowledge of sort command, you can sort almost any listing based on any field and even its any column you desire. These were some of tricks to help you sort files based on Date or Time. You can have your own tricks build based on these. However, if you have any other interesting trick, you can always mention that in your comments.

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How to Sort Output of ‘ls’ Command By Last Modified Date and Time

One of the commonest things a Linux user will always do on the command line is listing the contents of a directory. As we may already know, ls and dir are the two commands available on Linux for listing directory content, with the former being more popular and in most cases, preferred by users.

When listing directory contents, the results can be sorted based on several criteria such as alphabetical order of filenames, modification time, access time, version and file size. Sorting using each of these file properties can be enabled by using a specific flag.

In this brief ls command guide, we will look at how to sort the output of ls command by last modification time (date and time).

Let us start by executing some basic ls commands.

Linux Basic ls Commands

1. Running ls command without appending any argument will list current working directory contents.

List Content of Working Directory

2. To list contents of any directory, for example /etc directory use:

List Contents of Directory

3. A directory always contains a few hidden files (at least two), therefore, to show all files in a directory, use the -a or —all flag:

List Hidden Files in Directory

4. You can as well print detailed information about each file in the ls output, such as the file permissions, number of links, owner’s name and group owner, file size, time of last modification and the file/directory name.

This is activated by the -l option, which means a long listing format as in the next screenshot:

Long List Directory Contents

Sort Files Based on Time and Date

5. To list files in a directory and sort them last modified date and time, make use of the -t option as in the command below:

Sort ls Output by Date and Time

6. If you want a reverse sorting files based on date and time, you can use the -r option to work like so:

Sort ls Output Reverse by Date and Time

We will end here for now, however, there is more usage information and options in the ls command, so make it a point to look through it or any other guides offering ls command tricks every Linux user should know or use sort command. Last but not least, you can reach us via the feedback section below.

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Find And Sort Files Based On Access, Modification Date And Time In Linux

We already know how to organize the similar type of files in specific folders in Linux and Unix-like operating systems. In that method, we learned to organize the similar type of files in a folder. In other words, the files have been organized based on their extension. We don’t know whether the file is new or old one. We simply put the same type of files in a folder. Today, in this guide, we are going to find and sort files based on access and modification date and time, not extension. In case, if you want to find a particular file accessed or modified on a particular date or time, you’re on the right track. Read on.

Find and sort files based on access, modification date and time in Linux

You don’t need to install any extra applications to find and sort files. For the purpose of this guide, we are going to use three Linux commands namely ls, find and sort. These commands are the part of Linux Kernel, so don’t bother installing them.

As may already know, the ls command lists a directory contents with additional information such as date and time of modification or access, permissions, size, owner, group etc. It will sort the entries of the given directory, alphabetically. If you didn’t mention the directory, it will list the contents of current working directory.

The find command is used to search for files in a directory hierarchy.

The sort command sorts the lines of text files and writes sorted concatenation of all FILE(s) to standard output.

1. Find and sort files based on last access time using ls command

The following command will list files based on the last access time. The newest files will be listed first.

Sample output:

• -u — Sort by access time, newest first

2. Find and sort files based on modification time using ls command

To list files based on the modification time, run:

• -l — Indicates long listing format,
• -t — Sort by modification time, newest first.

Sample output:

The above command will sort the files of the current working directory based on the modification time. The newest files will be displayed first.

To list the files of a specific directory based on modification time, type:

To list the files in reverse order, i.e oldest files first, use ‘r’ flag like below:

3. Find and sort files based on last modification time using ls command

The command lists the files based on the last modification time. It means, this command lists the files first whose any status information (such as owner, group, permissions, size etc) have been recently changed.

Sample output:

• -c — Sort by last modification time

4. Find and sort files based on date

The following command lists the files based on last accessed date and time. Newest files will be listed first.

Sample output:

In the above output, the first column shows the last accessed date of the file, second column shows the last accessed time and third column shows the name of file. Here, ‘head -n 10’ is not the number files. It is number of entries in the output including the blank spaces.

Also, you can use «sort» command with «ls» command to list the files based on last accessed month, date, and time like below.

Sample output:

• -k6M — Lists files monthly wise (6th field) in the output.
• -k7n — Lists files date wise (7th field) in the output.

And, that’s all. You know now how to find and sort files based on the access, modification time and date in Linux. As you can see in the above examples, it is fairly easy to sort the files. For more details, refer man pages of each command.

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Вывод списка файлов с сортировкой

Поделюсь удобными параметрами команды ls для сортировки списка файлов. Команда ls предназначена для вывода списка файлов и директорий, но по умолчанию она сортирует список по имени.

Для того, чтобы отсортировать список файлов используются следующие опции:

Опции команды ls для сортировки файлов.

Опция	Эквивалентная опция	Описание
-U	—sort=none	без сортировки
-X	—sort=extension	сортировка по расширению файла
-S	—sort=size	сортировка по размеру
-t	—sort=time	сортировка по времени изменения
-v	выполнять сортировку по версиям файлов
-r	выполнять сортировку в обратном порядке

Например, мы хотим отсортировать список по размеру файлов, тогда выполняем команду:

Это эквивалентно следующей команде:

Аналогично, например, если мы хотим получить список, отсортированный по расширению файлов:

Вывод директорий над файлами

Обычно команда ls выводит директории вперемешку с файлами. Некоторые реализации команды ls поддерживают полезную опцию: —group-directories-first. Если данная опция указана, то все директории будут выводится над списком файлов, что очень удобно.

Дополнительную информацию по команде ls вы можете получить, выполнив в терминале: man ls.

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