Searching folder in linux

How To Find Files, Folders and Directories In Linux From Command Line?

Linux provides different ways to find and locate files and folders. We can use GUI tools like GNOME and KDE file managers or other 3’rd party applications designed for finding files. In this tutorial, we will look at how to find files, folders, and directories from the command line.

Tools To Find Files and Folder In Linux

As stated previously there are a lot of tools that can be used to find files and folders. We will look in detail all of them. Here list of these tools.

Find Command

find command is very featureful command used with a lot of different options. More details about find command can be found from the following tutorial.

Find Only Files

We can search only files by providing file type as -type f . We will search files those named conf in this example. We will use the glob start and end of the search term in order to accept any prefix or postfix for the search term. So this will match conffff , myconf , myconfffff , myconfiguration.txt etc.

Alternatively, we can specify the path we want to search for the given file name. We will provide the path according to . . In this example, we will search in the /etc path.

Find Only Folders

We may need only to find the folder. We will specify the type like below a directory.

Locate Command

locate command can be used as an offline database of all files and folders. locate will search a database which is created with updatedb command. More detailed information can get from the following tutorial.

As locate database only holds file and folder names we can not search in detail. But this database provides us very fast search option then find command because it works offline.

Update Database

As stated previously locate uses a database to search files and folders. Updating this database is important before a search. The update will take very little time.

Search For File or Folders

We will use locate command and the file and folder name to search.

Grep Command

grep command mainly filters given text and files contents but we can use it to find files and folders. For more detail

We can use ls command recursively and grep the files and folder we want to find. In this example, we will search for files and folders whose names contain backup .

Which Command

which command is not an actual file and folder search. which command simply search current environment executable files. This is generally useful if we are looking for a command which is not included in PATH variable and can not use automatically.

Whereis Command

whereis command is used to list given search term related binary, source, or man page files. In this example, we will search for ls binary and related man page files.

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How To Find a Directory On Linux Based System

I just switched from MS-Windows server admin to Debian Linux server system administration roles. I need to find a directory called project.images. I was also told that the locate command is the simplest and quickest way to find the locations of files and directories on Linux. But the locate command is not working out for me. How do I find project.images directory using command-line options only?

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	No
Requirements	find command on Linux or macOS/Unix
Est. reading time	5m

You need to use find command. It is used to locate files on Linux or Unix-like system. The locate command will search through a prebuilt database of files generated by updatedb.

The find command will search live file-system for files that match the search criteria.

How to find a directory on Linux

The find command syntax is:
find /where/to/look/up criteria action
find /dir/path/look/up criteria action
find /dir/path/look/up -name «dir-name-here»
find /dir/path/look/up -name «pattern»
find /dir/path/look/up -name «dir-name-here» -print
find /dir/path/look/up -name «dir-name-here»
find / -name «dir-name-here»
find / -type d -name «dir-name-here»
find / -type d -name «dir-name-here» 2>/dev/null

Linux find directory command

The following example will show all files in the current directory and all subdirectories:

Finding a directory

To find a directory called apt in / (root) file system, enter:

Alert: When searching / (root) file system, you need to run the find command as root user.

Dealing with “Permission denied error messages” on Linux

Find will show an error message for each directory/file on which you don’t have read permission

How to find a directory named Documents on Linux?

Type the following command to search for Documents directory in your $HOME dir:
$ find $HOME -type d -name Documents
Sample outputs:

Getting a detailed list of files/dirs

Pass the -ls to list current file in ls command output format:

How do I list only directories?

Just find directories and skip file names pass the -type d option as follows:

How do I perform a case insensitive search?

Replace -name option with -iname as follows:

The patterns ‘apt’ match the directory names ‘apt’, ‘APT’, ‘Apt’, ‘apT’, etc.

How do I find a directory called project.images?

Type any one of the following command:

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A note about locate command

See also

• All find command examples from our /faq/ sections.
• Find command man page

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Category	List of Unix and Linux commands
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Comments on this entry are closed.

Why don’t you run updatedb and then locate and again you’ll have “simplest and quickest way to find the locations of files and directories on Linux”.

updatedb will update your database.

That only helps for semi-permanent files since it only checks periodically to update the updatedb database. For files that were created recently it will not be found.

Find is a great tool that i use a lot.
You could have talk about the -exec switch wich allows you to process the outpout. ie : find and delete all file in ./ that haven’t been modified since 90 day:

Anyway, great job on this website, keep it on!

I have to second that updatedb is the way to go for a novice linux user. No worries about syntax and whatnot. Its also very useful for when you need to do multiple scans since you only traverse the filesystem once.

In regards to -exec, you should be using -execdir when available due to some security implications… and the above rm -rf is somewhat dangerous since find by default traverses from the top down. Delete would be a much safer (and faster!!) operation than-exec rm.

I have to agree with your update, rm -Rf is maybe too dangerons to use for novice users.

I did not know -execdir wich seems to be very usefull.

Thank you for that update =)

Great article. so useful. since I don’t have root, I get very verbose “no permission” output that is useless and I have to find the actual location through all the muck. Is there a way to only print found paths? Thanks so much for this article!

All those “no permission” messages should be on stderr while the information you want is on stdout. Both stderr and stdout default to printing on the controlling terminal. Tacking “> stdoutfile” on the end of the command would separate them, leaving all the unwanted noise on the terminal and putting the good stuff in stdoutfile. It would make more sense to redirect stderr to /dev/null (throwing it away) and leaving the useful output on the controlling terminal, but that would require finding the instructions for redirecting stderr in the shell docs (again).

To avoid seeing stderr messages, just use something like this:

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How to find a folder in Linux using the command line

Command to find a folder in Linux

1. find command – Search for files and folder in a directory hierarchy
2. locate command – Find files and folders by name using prebuilt database/index

How to find folder on Linux using find command

The syntax is:
find /where/to/look/up/ criteria action
find /folder/path/to/look/up/ criteria action
find /folder/path/ -name «folder-name-here»
find /search/path/ -name «folder-name-here» -print
find /search/path/ -name «folder-name-here» -ls
find /folder/ -name «pattern»

Finding a folder named Documents

To find a folder named “Documents” in your home directory ($HOME i.e. /home/vivek/ home directory), run:
find $HOME -type d -name «Documents»
OR
find

-type d -name «Documents»
OR
find /home/vivek/ -type d -name «Documents»

find command in action on Linux

How to search for case incentive folder names

You can force find command interpret upper and lowercase letters as being the same. For example match Documents, DOCUMENTS, DocuMEnts and so on by passing the -iname option:
find $HOME -type d -iname «Documents»
OR
find

-type d -iname «Documents»
OR
find /home/vivek/ -type d -iname «Documents»
Sample outputs:

How to search a folder named /etc/ in the root (/) file system

When searching / (root) file system, you need to run the find command as root user:
# find / -type d -name «etc»
OR
$ sudo find / -type d -name «etc»
OR
$ sudo find / -type d -iname «etc»

How to hide “Permission denied error messages” when using find command

The find will show an error message for each directory/file on which you don’t have read permission. To avoid those messages, append 2>/dev/null at the end of each find command:
$ find /where/to/look/ criteria action 2>/dev/null
$ sudo find / -type d -iname «etc» 2>/dev/null

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How do I find a directory called python.projects?

Try:
find / -type d -iname «python.projects» -ls
OR
find / -type d -name «python.projects» -ls
It is also possible to use the bash shell wild cards, run:
find / -type d -name «python.*»
sudo find / -type d -name «?ython.*»

Understanding find command options

• -name : Base of file name (the path with the leading directories removed) matches shell pattern.
• -iname : Perform a case insensitive search for given pattern
• -print : Print the full file name on the standard output (usually screen), followed by a newline.
• -ls : Display current file in ls -dils format on standard output i.e. your screen.
• -type d : Only list folders or directories.
• -type f : Only list files.

Search folder in Linux using locate command

To search for a folder named exactly dir1 (not *dir1*), type:
$ locate -b ‘\dir1’
$ locate -b ‘\folder2’
Just search for file name matching Pictures, type:
$ locate Pictures
For more info see “UNIX Find A File Command“.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to find a folder on the Linux system using find and locate commands. For more info see gnu find command help page here.

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