Finding With Terminal Instead of Finder

ByMike Moffit

There are many Terminal commands that one can use to expand control over OS X. We are all aware of Spotlight and Finder, but many find that the Terminal offers a wider range of options than the GUI. Today I will talk about the find command and how to use it.

The syntax for the find command is as follows:

find ~/ -name testing.rtf

The first word will always be find, the second will be the directory or folder you would like find to search, the third will alway be -name and the last is the file you need find to search for. As you can see I used the master level of the home folder to start the search by using the ~ symbol. This ensures I will not miss the file I am looking for. Please see the example below.

Find also allows you to search for a file type instead of a specific file. Just replace the file with the file type and include an asterisk, which is Terminal’s wild card symbol, in front of it. See the example below.

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