I think I lost (or forgot the file location) a file named toms-first-birthday.mp4 on my Unix based system. Is there is a Unix bash shell command to find a file called “toms-first-birthday.mp4” in a directory and subdirectories?

You need to use the find command on a Linux or Unix-like system to search through directories for files.

Adblock detected 😱

My website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to my visitors. I get it! Ads are annoying but they help keep this website running. It is hard to keep the site running and producing new content when so many people block ads. Please consider donating money to the nixCraft via PayPal/Bitcoin, or become a supporter using Patreon.

Syntax

The syntax is
find /search/directory/ -name "matching file search criteria" -actions
find /dir/to/search -name "pattern" -print
find /dir/to/search -name "file-to-search" -print
find /dir/to/search -name "file-to-search" -print [-action]

The find command will begin looking in the /dir/to/search/ and proceed to search through all accessible subdirectories. The filename is usually specified by the -name option. You can use other matching criteria too:

• -name file-name – Search for given file-name. You can use pattern such as *.c
• -iname file-name – Like -name, but the match is case insensitive. For example, the patterns `fo*’ and `F??’ match the file names `Foo’, `FOO’, `foo’, `fOo’, etc. The pattern `*foo*` will also match a file called ‘.foobar’.
• -user userName – The file’s owner is userName
• -group groupName – The file’s group owner is groupName
• -type N – Search by file type. N can be any one of the following:
• b : block (buffered) special
• c : character (unbuffered) special
• d : directory
• p : named pipe (FIFO)
• f : regular file
• l : symbolic link; this is never true if the -L option or the -follow option is in effect, unless the symbolic link is broken. If you want to search for symbolic links when -L is in effect, use -xtype.
• s : socket
• D : door (Solaris Unix)

The default action is to display the file name when criteria is matched. You can specify the following actions when file found:

• -print : Show pathnames of matching files.
• -exec cmd {} + : Run command cmd on a file.
• -ls : List current file in ls -dils format on screen.
• -delete : Delete file.

Unix find command examples

To find and report toms-first-birthday.mp4 file in your HONE directory, enter:
$ find $HOME -name "toms-first-birthday.mp4" -print
To find and report all mp4 files starting at the /home/vivek/ directory, enter:
$ find /home/vivek/ -name "*.mp4" -print
To find and report all mp4 files starting at the /home/vivek/ and /tmp/ directory, enter:
$ find /home/vivek/ /tmp/ -name "*.mp4" -print
For more info, see the Unix find command manual page:
$ man find

A note about locate command on Linux/Unix

To find files by name use locate command:
locate file-name
locate pattern
locate [option] pattern
locate toms-first-birthday.mp4 | more
locate -b '\toms-first-birthday.mp4'
locate *.sh | more
Sample outputs: