You need to pass the -t option to the ls command. The -t option sort by time modified i.e. most recently modified first before sorting the operands by lexicographical order. In other words, last downloaded file can be displayed using the following command. Open the Terminal application and type the following command.
Syntax
The syntax is:
ls -t
ls -lt | less
ls -lt ~/Downloads/ | less
Sample outputs:
total 60754328 drwxr-xr-x 3 vivek staff 102 Aug 25 13:18 ImageOptim.app -rw-r--r--@ 1 vivek staff 301746331 Aug 25 01:25 data-db2-sample.rar -rw-r--r--@ 1 vivek staff 1727030 Aug 25 01:14 testdisk-6.14.mac_intel.tar.tar.bz2 -rw-r--r--@ 1 vivek staff 23850 Aug 24 22:36 english-68.zip -rw-r--r--@ 1 vivek staff 72488 Aug 24 22:05 36363537dkgpd.pdf drwxr-xr-x@ 3 vivek staff 170 Aug 24 19:58 backups drwxr-xr-x@ 4 vivek staff 306 Aug 24 19:56 tarballs -rw-------@ 1 vivek staff 39748 Aug 24 13:22 Account-xyz.pdf -rw-------@ 1 vivek staff 35583 Aug 24 13:21 Portfolio-Update-FY13-14.pdf -rw-------@ 1 vivek staff 141695 Aug 24 01:26 13290.pdf drwxr-xr-x@ 2 vivek staff 136 Aug 24 00:32 hd-video-raw-files -rw-r--r--@ 1 vivek staff 1359349025 Aug 23 21:04 youtube-sample.mp4 drwxr-xr-x@ 2 vivek staff 170 Aug 23 21:03 delme -rw-r--r--@ 1 vivek staff 120587 Aug 23 19:00 Screenshot-System-Monitor.png -rw-r--r--@ 1 vivek staff 23301 Aug 22 13:21 sad-tux.png .... .. ....
Pass the -r option to reverse the order of the sort to get reverse lexicographical order or the oldest entries first (or largest files last, if combined with sort by size), enter:
ls -tr
ls -ltr | less
ls -ltr ~/Downloads/ | less
Sample outputs:
total 60754328 -rwxr-xr-x@ 1 vivek staff 115262 Jan 1 1970 P4.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 vivek staff 135734 Sep 16 2011 game.idx -rw-r--r-- 1 vivek staff 51111 Sep 16 2011 game.English.srt -rwxr-xr-x@ 1 vivek staff 331201 Sep 6 2012 Portfolio_Recommendations_Comprehensive_Sep12.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 vivek staff 301746245 Sep 25 2012 hp-ux-to-rhel6-guide.pdf -rwxr-xr-x@ 1 vivek staff 13350 Mar 13 16:44 DC-location-Towns.xlsx -rw-r--r--@ 1 vivek staff 574423040 Jun 10 16:33 data-center-opening.avi -rw-r--r--@ 1 vivek staff 2375468 Jun 15 05:04 backups.rar -rw-r--r-- 1 vivek staff 2631709 Jun 15 05:07 last-good-know-backups.pdf .... ..
Sort by modification time, newest first and other options
Make sure you pass the -A (list all entries except for . and ..) or -a (include directory entries whose names begin with a dot) option to see hidden files:
ls -Altr ~/Downloads/ | less
ls -alt ~/Downloads/ | less
The following option turned on human readable output:
$ ls -halt
$ ls -halt | more
Sample outputs:
Recommended readings
- See ls(1) for more information.
1 comment
Just use
ls -t
or (equivalently)
ls –sort=time
This will the most recently modified files (and other file system objects) first. You may want to add a -l switch for details on the files. Pipe the output through `tac` to reverse the order. Select the newest (oldest) files by piping the output through `head`. Example:
ls -lt | head -n 3 # displays the three most recently modified files.