Using 'find' to search for specific files in Linux (basic)

This was more of a cheat card for myself but figured others might find it useful too.

Searching in Nautilus can be sketchy and while 'locate  ' works fine sometimes I need to be more specific when looking for a particular file to narrow down the search results.

The 'find' command is quite powerful, but tricky to commit to memory when you don't use it often.

find (starting_directory) (test) (options) (match_criteria) (actions_to_perform_on_results)

Find all "jpg" files starting at filesystem's root

find . -name "*.jpg"

nb. find / -name \*jpg does the same thing, escape the wildcard character * and saves typing quotes.

Find directories (-type d):

find . -type d

Find a specific directory

find . -type d -name \Pictures

Use -iname instead of -name to ignore case.

Search multiple directories:

find /usr /etc /var/www -iname \index.html

To filter out permission errors add 2>/dev/null to the end of the line.

Search for symbolic links -type l

There are many more advanced switches which I'll add later if needed, this is just to explain basic searching.