How do you usually find files on Linux without wasting time?

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scottchiefbaker@reddit

I gave up on find a long time ago. It works, but it's just not intuitive and it's slow. Give fd a try instead. It's way faster, more intuitive, matches based on regexp, etc. It's better than find in just about every way.

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Fiftybottles@reddit

The syntax is a tad esoteric, but idk that I find find to be all that tough? In most cases it's as easy as find . -iname "\*thing_i_want\*" from whatever directory. That can also be easily turned into a one-line function snd tossed into your .bashrc or wherever else.

Granted, that's obviously still more verbose than fd, but not enough to kill the tool for me or convince me to stray from a core utility.

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CramNBL@reddit

The difference in speed is just night and day though. Same with grep vs ripgrep.

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Fiftybottles@reddit

That's a fair and valid point, I think for my personal use case though I just don't really notice that difference. Most of the time, I'm pruning out irrelevant cache directories with a ton of files in them which would slow down searches anyway. Typically I'm just trying to find some text file in my documents, or find everything ending with a certain extension so I can move them somewhere else en masse.

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Jean_Luc_Lesmouches@reddit

What always trips me up with find is that the what to search / where to search order is reversed relative to grep

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tavianator@reddit

This is one big reason I wrote bfs which is compatible with find but also accepts bfs -name '*.txt' ~/Downloads

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Fiftybottles@reddit

Once I realised find is basically just its own micro-language it stopped tripping me up. The only "order" you really have to remember if you just want to perform a basic filesearch is find [folder_to_search] [commands]. The commands are then just evaluated, in order, one-by-one.

This blog post was actually pretty instructive for me in understanding how the find micro-language works at its core.

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kriebz@reddit

Yes! Good advice. I'll have to read this blog. I hate that order matters. I once had a long sad night doing some file restores after I put -delete ahead of -name.

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Fiftybottles@reddit

Oh man... The order mattering really confused the hell out of me at first too, particularly with prune. I couldn't for the life of me put together how it actually affected my search; not understanding that the command was actually evaluating my input like a script made it a lot harder to grasp for me, at the time.

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FrankVanDamme@reddit

- always check before you add -delete

- prune is handy. find bla/ -name largefolder -prune -or -name somefile.txt

that'll look for the file, except in directories named largefolder

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Jean_Luc_Lesmouches@reddit

"The best way to remember it is to remember it" has to be one of the most deluded, unhelpful comments I've ever seen

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Fiftybottles@reddit

Not what I said, and I also provided a link which explains the fundamental design of the expression language which is evaluated every time you run the command, so I'm not sure why you're being so hostile.

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gilko86@reddit (OP)

thx

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CaptainEdMercer@reddit

I've also found that ripgrep makes a perfect companion to fdfind.

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scottchiefbaker@reddit

Indeed. They are two indispensable tools in my workflow.

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LocalNightDrummer@reddit

Same for me.

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epikurious@reddit

This is the best way.

Just a reminder that it's called fd-find in some dstros.

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CWRau@reddit

+1 for fd, was going to recommend that as well

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rastyk1@reddit

You have to figure out what you know about the files first and then use what you have to start.

There are some tricks like -newerXY and, as was mentioned, -iname. If you can narrow down your search to specific directories or size, that makes a difference.

And you can be lazy if you can make good assumptions. If you know your file is big, the size will be key. If it was written yesterday, -mtime will matter more perhaps.

Of course, ‘man find’ is the place to go, but I hope it’s better to give those ideas before people start looking there. Good luck!

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Moons_of_Moons@reddit

Just put 100% of your files on the desktop. There they are. Found ✅

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Early_Host3113@reddit

Truthfully, I don't get to use Linux for work so... I just waste time. :D

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Barrions@reddit

fdand fzf all the way

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wezelboy@reddit

updatedb then locate

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m15f1t@reddit

So.. Basically find.

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troyvit@reddit

find does a fresh read on the filesystem every time you run it. locate uses a pre-built database of your filesystem to find stuff, so it's much faster. The trade-off is that if you created the file you're looking for and updatedb hasn't run yet, locate won't find it.

There are tons of other differences but that architectural difference is the important one to me.

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CWRau@reddit

Fresh read is kinda exaggerated tho, the kernel caches a lot. fd and rg are core tools in my workflow, both searching through my entire home directory with millions upon millions of files, gigabytes of data and only the first run takes a little bit of time, every time else it's maybe 4 seconds

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troyvit@reddit

Oooh good point. I wondered why similar `find` commands would run faster. Like it's not even on the same directory but it's a similar command. I think there's a lot more to find than I gave it credit for.

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m15f1t@reddit

I know how it works but if you want to find a file and run both commands as he said it's basically the same as using find in the first place?

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wezelboy@reddit

Syntax is different. Others have said find is cumbersome and I’m inclined to agree with them.

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roadit@reddit

Only on SunOS 4 ...

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wezelboy@reddit

Um.. no.

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gilko86@reddit (OP)

thanks!

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duffer_dev@reddit

This is one of the first package I install after a fresh install.

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manny2206@reddit

Might have to try that real quick

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pieplu@reddit

or mlocate

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courtarro@reddit

plocate is the newer, faster replacement for mlocate.

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dingman58@reddit

m'locate (tips fedora)

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pocketgravel@reddit

And if this doesn't work I have fsearch installed which is like the Linux version of everything.

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todd_dayz@reddit

I just either use plocate locate, or an alias I made to run systemctl start plocate-updatedb && locate, depending on what I want to find.

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PocketStationMonk@reddit

I press SUPER and type in whatever I’m trying to find. So far it’s worked fine.

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gilko86@reddit (OP)

thanks

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AmarildoJr@reddit

I've gotta be the only one using my file manager's default search function? xD

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gilko86@reddit (OP)

hahah, maybe ))

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ButterflyMundane7187@reddit

locate and grep

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gilko86@reddit (OP)

thank you, mate

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gosand@reddit

especially with options like -i (both) and -v (grep)

e.g. locate -i | grep -i | grep -iv ......

Have your system do the updatedb daily so it's up to date. (e.g. /etc/cron.daily/plocate)

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faramirza77@reddit

Locate if I know what file but not where. fd or bfs for pattern searching

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Xatraxalian@reddit

For binaries: which.

For normal files such as documents, I use the filter find function in Dolphin in KDE. If I don't know where a file is, I use KFind.

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stejoo@reddit

Using which is often fine, but I recommend type instead of it. The second is in the know of shell builtins and configuration (aliases and functions for example).

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BinkReddit@reddit

Same; the filter function in Dolphin is game-changing.

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duva_@reddit

I think I open dolphin once a month lol

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TheOgGhadTurner@reddit

I’m new to KDE in general so I’m going to try this out I generally just do search and it’s… fine I guess lol

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TheBlackCarlo@reddit

If it's just a question of finding a file by its name, then i just do:

find . -type f > files.txt

and then I parse the text file either with grep, or with the search function (/) inside vim.

Basically I decide when to create the database of files (files.txt) and of what. Then I just use normal terminal tools to search stuff.

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philemon-phonon@reddit

Same here but navigate files.txt with Emacs + M-x occur, grep, whatever

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mrtruthiness@reddit

Yes! Usually piped to grep for me.

Often I narrow the date/time range:

  -newermt "2025-01-01"

Or ... to look at files last modified 2025:

 -newermt "2025-01-01" ! -newermt "2026-01-01"

Or if you remember that it has been modified within the last 30 days:

 -mtime -30

Or if it has been modified in the last 90 days, but not within the last 30 days:

 -mtime -90 -mtime  +30

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0x80070002@reddit

Can’t you just remember them? Just memorize where you have all your files then you don’t have to search for them. And I am not even joking, I learned to do this on Windows where search never worked good after Win98.

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manny2206@reddit

Nah fzf is best

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brandmeist3r@reddit

yeah, I use it all the time with these cli options as custom alias

fzf --preview 'bat --style=numbers --color=always --line-range :500 {}'

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manny2206@reddit

Brody would you do a breakdown of the flags and how you use it?👀

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brandmeist3r@reddit

the preview shows the file contents on the right half, it only works with {}, otherwise the preview is empty

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saunderez@reddit

Damn straight it is

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pouetpouetcamion2@reddit

fzf

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Background-Train-104@reddit

nvim -p $(find | grep)

Wasting zero time

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vestern@reddit

find /dir - xdev -iname thing

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PhotographingNature@reddit

Find. I'll accept the time penalty for knowing it'll look for exactly what I ask for.

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githman@reddit

find | grep because it does not rely on any pre-built caches that happen to be outdated exactly when you need them the most. Admittedly, sometimes I chain greps instead of taking the high road with a sophisticated regex.

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insanemal@reddit

I don't lose them in the first place?

I rarely ever need to "find" a file.

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TerribleReason4195@reddit

I don't search for files. I know where each file is on my computer.

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nifoj@reddit

What if you uninstall something and want to find and delete what's left of it in your home dir?

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Mordiken@reddit

find ~ -iname "*app_name*"

Where app_name is the name of the program you've uninstalled.

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TerribleReason4195@reddit

I think what you are mentioning is usually git. When you git clone something it, you copy a folder from the repo. You can obviously remove it depending where you cloned it to. There is also an option in most package managers to purge the files when removing the package that you installed.

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hardlying@reddit

I can't think of any reason Id be searching for a file without knowing the directory

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TerribleReason4195@reddit

Seriously though. You must be messy to not to find what you are looking for.

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Hot-Employ-3399@reddit

Fd. it's so fast I use it starting from $HOME.

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akram_med@reddit

Use fzf which uses fd to display files so install both and run fzf

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CarbonXit@reddit

I use fuzzy finder

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s4mur4j3n@reddit

Couple of things come to mind as my "must-haves": fzf , fd and ripgrep (rg).

If you want to navigate filesystems with speed on the terminal, you should check out br (boot) as well.

FuZzy Find (fzf) is the one thing that just makes finding stuff so much easier, and you can integrate it with quite a few tools too.

Ripgrep is grep with some serious speed and some nice additions for developers.

fd or fd-find is just a more pleasant finder than find, and it is also equipped with some developer friendly features

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AkelGe-1970@reddit

I know where the files are, usually. At least the directory that can contain them in some subdir, so I use find with the "general" directory as target. If I need to find a file from a package I use dpkg -L <package>. I think I stopped running find / after 2/3 years of using Linux.

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SpeedDaemon1969@reddit

I put them in a logical place. Photos in photos directory, documents in documents directory, etc.

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Altruistic_Tank_9636@reddit

That's fine if if you don't organize files into subdirectories. If you've got files spread across 30 directories under /music/projects, your method fails

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oxez@reddit

That's way too smart. We're on /r/linux in 2026, using your brain is forbidden.

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SpeedDaemon1969@reddit

Sorry. I will try to vibe code. I will try to vibe code.....

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Jeremy_Thursday@reddit

From the terminal. Fzf. Specifically fzf -e then interactively type the file names. Pro tip if you leave it open, it’ll instantly be able to search everything

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The_Hamster_Shagger@reddit

I just use tracker or whatever kde uses.

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aloobhujiyaay@reddit

locate is great just remember to run updatedb occasionally or it’ll betray you at the worst time

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SRART25@reddit

Ssd makes it a non issue, but also you should have it running on a cron job.

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stef_eda@reddit

updatedb database

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Juts@reddit

export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS='--walker file,hidden'

fzf

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ExceedinglyEdible@reddit

locate. Rebuild the db through a cron task.

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Dolapevich@reddit

I usually decide on a pattern on where to store files, and stick to it. So... if I look for a book I know it is under /mnt/storage/books/<author first surname letter>/<Author>/<Book name>/

Can you explain what is your use case/need? Are those user or OS files?

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TipAfraid4755@reddit

find / | grep

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susosusosuso@reddit

Just ask the ai agent to find the file?

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PeppeMonster@reddit

sudo ls -lRa | grep filename

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mondshyn@reddit

fsearch

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disinformationtheory@reddit

https://github.com/sharkdp/fd

It's a better find. I usually use it over locate because I'm too lazy to exclude my yocto builds which generate lots of false positives.

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AxeCapital13@reddit

fzf or ripgrep

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Intrepid_Screen6425@reddit

I... remember every system path and every single file. Brain RAM is free and always online :))) Good luck :)))

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libra00@reddit

My first stop is always locate. It doesn't always work, but when it does it's much faster and doesn't require a bunch of args and shit. After that I might fuck around with find for a minute, but then remember that I don't remember the damned syntax, and then just go use dolphin's search feature.

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SheriffBartholomew@reddit

For user files? I just keep them organized in the documents folder ...

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ImperfectMinimalist_@reddit

fzf

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pibarnas@reddit

Look for fd in github and install it.

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astronomersassn@reddit

tbh i just have my stuff sorted in a way where it doesn't take me that long to get there

i need a VST? cd /home/me/Downloads/vsts

im working on my website? cd /home/me/Documents/coding/website

or just doing that in dolphin with folders

i also tend to be able to figure it out if i forgot. "i think i sent it through kde connect, so it's probably in my downloads... there it is!" or "the most recent test mix of the song i'm working on is probably in my music folder... wait, there's a demos folder- there we go!"

im not particularly organized, some files just go in specific places and the rest are in a less organized random folder.

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T8ert0t@reddit

Docfetch app

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b4st14nb@reddit

using plocate, a faster alternative to locate. Just make sure to run frequently sudo updatedb to update its cached DB and then type locate + %file_name%

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b4st14nb@reddit

or fzf + zsh to be way more convenient tbh. Someone said that before here

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NuclearGriffin@reddit

If you know the file name then just type it in the search bar. Unlike windows, the search bar actually searches your files, not Bing.

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BranchLatter4294@reddit

I organize my files to make them easy to find.

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saunderez@reddit

I got to the highest level that I know will contain what I'm looking for...then I use fzf and search for a few characters and it will automatically appear somewhere near the bottom of list.

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DFS_0019287@reddit

I use three methods, in decreasing order of frequency:

My memory. I know more-or-less where I put stuff.
plocate to find something quickly, often piped into grep to narrow it down.
find if plocate fails. I don't have a problem with find's syntax, but then again, I've been using UNIX-like systems since 1989...

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SoggyWalrus7893@reddit

unix was/is nice

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SeriousPlankton2000@reddit

unlike other locates, plocate does by default use AND on the parameter list instead of OR.

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SoggyWalrus7893@reddit

as super user find / -name xxxx

an * at the beginning of xxxx is slow , and * at the end of xxxx is speedy.

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Lost4name@reddit

Catfish program.

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ritonlajoie@reddit

I usually use silversearcher it's crazy fast

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getapuss@reddit

Whatever the file manager is in Mint has a search button that seems to work.

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valgrid@reddit

https://github.com/sharkdp/fd

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za72@reddit

where

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sethasaurus666@reddit

If you have thunar, from the menu : Go -> Recent

This shows recent files (e.g. something you just downloaded but have no idea of where tf it went)

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Shintoz@reddit

I use find, piped to grep.

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veghead@reddit

Ag or rg are the best companions when you're searching for content. Locate is still my goto for finding by filename. In fact I get really annoyed when I'm using someone's machine that hasn't at least initialised locate and installed ag.

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Joedirty18@reddit

Well firstly im organized enough i usualy dont need it but when i use find i just always make sure to include - maxdepth. Even if you arent sure of the folder location you should still be able to set a reasonable limit so it doesn't take forever.

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EnvironmentalCook520@reddit

There's a gui tool called catfish. On windows I used a tool called search everything, and I wanted a similar tool on Linux and found catfish

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JDGumby@reddit

I just do what any normal person does and use whatever graphical file search tool that comes with my distro/DE (catfish in the case of Mint Xfce, called 'File Search` in the menu if you leave the default generic names on :P).

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InfaSyn@reddit

kfind for gui, find command for cli

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chris32457@reddit

click dolphin

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Literallyapig@reddit

honestly, i use find with no arguments besides the path and pipe it into grep (ripgrep in my case), simply because i hate find's interface. there are certainly better ways to find stuff, but this has always worked for me lol

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revilo-1988@reddit

Find, grep, locate

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CurTOGuy@reddit

Try Recoll. It can find anything. It can even search within text of emails.

https://www.recoll.org/index.html

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IADGAF@reddit

Fsearch

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lKrauzer@reddit

Both Dolphin and Nautilus are pretty good for my use-case. I use both GNOME and Plasma installed on my distro (dualboot Fedora/Ubuntu).

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TONKAHANAH@reddit

The search feature in dolphin just never worked for me for the longest time, even across different systems.

Then one day it just worked and it's been pretty good since.

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dzuczek@reddit

Plasma also uses Baloo for file indexing

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cmrd_msr@reddit

alt+space=>filename=>enter

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DruidPeter4@reddit

If it's an executable on the system path you can use whereis . If you know what it's called, then bare minimum you can just use 'find | grep' or 'tree | grep'.

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_SuperStraight@reddit

catfish file search

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vmcrash@reddit

Midnight commander

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BitOBear@reddit

Well you should have a guess about where the file might be instead of finding across your entire device.

If you're only looking for one file using update DB before the locate that's about the same cost as doing a fine but you're just not watching it take that time. You psychologically assigned the effort to the locate command and ignore the amount of time updatedb was running.

Meanwhile if you forget to do the update just carrying around a lot of stale data.

Remembering to do things like use the mount argument and picking something other than the root of your file system makes find cost basically the same. Particularly if you use iname instead of name.

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ThellraAK@reddit

find / | grep [something]

Fuck

find / | grep -v [not this spam] | grep [something]

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signalno11@reddit

Don't forget https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck

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WeAreAlreadyCyborgs@reddit

For a binary

 whence BINARYNAME

Which is the binary invoked by default

 whereis BINARYNAME

Which is all the binaries installed on the system named that and where they are.

For any other file, let me introduce you to the awesomeness that is FSearch: https://cboxdoerfer.github.io/fsearch/

Point it at directories, run a scan, and it creates a database that is INSTANTLY searchable as you type. Also has regex, filters, a bunch of options. One of the most useful tools I use.

If you need to search for text within files, ripgrep and ripgrep-all are my go-to, as it is a faster Rust version of grep, including the ability to look in PDFs, Office Docs, E-Books, etc with ripgrep-all.

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ygonspic@reddit

I use fd (sharkps find implementation)

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Foxler2010@reddit

I know find is slow but it's standard and works on many systems. Since I am often jumping around and remoting between many different computers, I just stick with it even if it's not the best.

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gtrash81@reddit

Well, the command "find" crawls through the whole disk.
A second run is faster, because Linux saved the filesystem index into the RAM.
Easiest way to use "find" would be "find / -name fileLookingFor".
The command "locate" works on a database that either will be updated by a cronjob or by the command "updatedb".
The first run of updatedb will be slow too, because it crawls through the whole filesystem too.

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Accurate_Estimate811@reddit

Always used locate

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fata1w0und@reddit

Install plocate. Run updatedb as root/sudo. To find a file “locate ”

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edernucci@reddit

fzf

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CGA1@reddit

Terminal, create an alias:

alias locateu="updatedb && locate "

Otherwise, Fsearch.

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Slight_Manufacturer6@reddit

Fuzzy find or locate

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PicardovaKosa@reddit

i am rarely in a position to have to find a file that i know the name of.

More often i want to find a text file that i know contents of, but dont know the name or place.

For this, I just use awk.

[-]

Agron7000@reddit

ugrep is the fastest search tool in the world, it's written in C++ and it beats C and Rust versions. Plus it can search inside zip archives, pdf, documents and more.

It's super lean and super fast.

https://ugrep.com/

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sumsabumba@reddit

Fzf is nice

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archontwo@reddit

First step to finding things is to think about where you put them in the first place.

One of the bad habits I have to break from windows refugees is to not save everything to Downloads.

I tell them to think about the type of file they are saving, why they are saving it, and where it ought best to be filed. So an invoice should be in personal, purchasing and whatever sub division of that to keep it sane.

It takes a couple of hours to drill them but in the end they not only get it, but end up loving how they can organise their files in ways they never thought of before.

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MatchingTurret@reddit

find . -type f -iname "*.whatever" -print0 | xargs -0 ug "what I'm looking for"

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LightBusterX@reddit

The best and most obvious method is KRunner

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fellipec@reddit

locate on the tui, FSearch on the gui

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andyniemi@reddit

mlocate/plocate

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TheSodesa@reddit

I use fd. Might have to be installed via cargo or brew, though.

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Zdrobot@reddit

I use Midnight Commander ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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tuerda@reddit

Used to use locate. Switched to fd. I only ever used find for the --exec functionality, but fd does that too, so I might never use find or locate again.

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SeriousPlankton2000@reddit

locate (package plocate)

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kelek_s@reddit

If you're patient (it's an whole world) and willing to learn, maybe should you try the grep journey: -> https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/grep.1.html https://phoenixnap.com/kb/grep-command-linux-unix-examples

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michaelpaoli@reddit

I don't bother with locate nor have it installed, it's mostly out-of-date limited information, and a lot of regular I/O burn and space consumption, for not all that much use.

I use find all the time. To be efficient, don't examine/traverse what's unnecessary. Use reasonably appropriate filtering, mostly with find itself, to quickly hone in on the item(s) of interest. So, e.g., as appropriate, with find, shell, etc., use -xdev 2>>/dev/null -prune -newer -mtime ! -type X (), -ino, !, -o, -depth, |, sort, head, etc.

[-]

pixelbart@reddit

In .bashrc:

shopt -s globstar

Then use ls to recursively search for any html files:

$ ls */.html

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stiggg@reddit

Only find. I don’t think it’s too slow with modern SSDs, but when I search a file I’ve usually a glue where it might be and specifying a subdirectory. Worst case is maybe I’m searching inside the whole /usr. Back in the day with spinning IDE HDDs this was another story, locate was way more essential in these days.

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daemonpenguin@reddit

I recently started trying locate, and it’s much faster, but I know it depends on a database that isn’t always up to date.

While this is true, the database is typically updated once per day. So unless you know the file you are searching for is less than a day old, it's safe to use the "locate" command. And in most cases you probably shouldn't unless you are seeking a file using identifiers other than its name.

For example, if you want to purge all files in a directory over a month old, then "find" is ideal because it can check modified times, not just names.

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SufficientVanilla354@reddit

fzf pluggin in terminal? or i mostly remember paths of important folders

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RudePragmatist@reddit

find and grep are your friends.

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Electrical_Tomato_73@reddit

I mostly use my memory and a reasonable hierarchy. If I vaguely remember the filename and what level of directory it may be in, I may do "ls */*pattern*" (something like that; as many levels of */* as required). In practice that's fast enough for me.

[-]

fibonacci8@reddit

find | grep "what I'm looking for goes here"

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CatoDomine@reddit

I like fzf
I use it combined with tab completion in bash

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kwyxz@reddit

I use locate with an automated daily updatedb.

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Melodic_Respond6011@reddit

Configuration and global files, locate

Working project files within certain folder, fzf

[-]

Puchann@reddit

What files that you need to use locate and find? Tools are mostly used for script. The best method is organizing properly, I have a folder for work, a folder for personal things, a folder for config,....

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k-phi@reddit

built-in search in mc

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LocationReady788@reddit

Io adoro KDE e grazie a dolphin ci sono due strumenti fantastici 😄

-1 filtro in basso e

-2 Cerca file e cartelle

per me sono 2 cose fondamentali che mi permettono di affinare la ricerca cosa che su cinnamon non riesco a fare ad esempio

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lendarker@reddit

As always, it depends. Looking for a binary/command? -> which
Usually I use find otherwise, but I also usually have a good general idea on where a file should be, so I don't need to start the search at the root directory.