271

How can I do a simple find which would order the results by most recently modified?

Here is the current find I am using (I am doing a shell escape in PHP, so that is the reasoning for the variables):

find '$dir' -name '$str'\* -print | head -10

How could I have this order the search by most recently modified? (Note I do not want it to sort 'after' the search, but rather find the results based on what was most recently modified.)

1

19 Answers 19

343

Use this:

find . -printf "%T@ %Tc %p\n" | sort -n

printf arguments from man find:

  • %Tk: File's last modification time in the format specified by k.

  • @: seconds since Jan. 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT, with fractional part.

  • c: locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST 1989).

  • %p: File's name.

12
  • 11
    +1 Very useful, the first answer to this I have found with a readable/useful date output
    – Jake N
    Jun 26, 2013 at 13:48
  • 3
    I have this alias for finding recent files in my ~/.zshrc: fr () { find ./ -iname "*"$@"*" -printf "%T@ %Td-%Tb-%TY %Tk:%TM %p\n" | sort -n | cut -d " " -f 2- | grep -i "$@" ; } It recursively finds all files containing the pattern of the first argument passed to the command (fr <pattern>) and sorts them with the most recent one last. Oct 27, 2016 at 23:01
  • 2
    You may want to use ssed to get rid of the seconds fractional part and stil use ISO8601 as @PeterMortensen showed : find . -type f -printf "%TY-%Tm-%TdT%TT %p\n" | sort -r | ssed -R 's/^([^.]+)\.\d+ (.*)$/\1 \2/' Jan 31, 2019 at 8:51
  • 1
    @joelostblom JFYI, instead of cut -d " " -f 2- you may want to use cut -d " " -f 1 --complement but it is longer. Jan 31, 2019 at 8:52
  • 8
    Note that for OSX one has to use the GNU version gfind instead of find, since printf is not part of POSIX find. It can be installed with brew install findutils.
    – ttq
    Jun 8, 2021 at 16:14
97

The easiest method is to use zsh, thanks to its glob qualifiers.

print -lr -- $dir/**/$str*(om[1,10])

If you have GNU find, make it print the file modification times and sort by that.

find -type f -printf '%T@ %p\0' |
sort -zk 1nr |
sed -z 's/^[^ ]* //' | tr '\0' '\n' | head -n 10

If you have GNU find but not other GNU utilities, use newlines as separators instead of nulls; you'll lose support for filenames containing newlines.

find -type f -printf '%T@ %p\n' |
sort -k 1nr |
sed 's/^[^ ]* //' | head -n 10

If you have Perl (here I'll assume there are no newlines in file names):

find . -type f -print |
perl -l -ne '
    $_{$_} = -M;  # store file age (mtime - now)
    END {
        $,="\n";
        @sorted = sort {$_{$a} <=> $_{$b}} keys %_;  # sort by increasing age
        print @sorted[0..9];
    }'

If you have Python (also assuming no newlines in file names):

find . -type f -print |
python -c 'import os, sys; times = {}
for f in sys.stdin.readlines(): f = f[0:-1]; times[f] = os.stat(f).st_mtime
for f in (sorted(times.iterkeys(), key=lambda f:times[f], reverse=True))[:10]: print(f)'

There's probably a way to do the same in PHP, but I don't know it.

If you want to work with only POSIX tools, it's rather more complicated; see How to list files sorted by modification date recursively (no stat command available!) (retatining the first 10 is the easy part).

8
  • I think the find version shows the oldest files, and that you need to add the -r option to sort. Sep 7, 2012 at 6:56
  • My sed says it doesn't have a -z option. Jul 15, 2015 at 4:38
  • 1
    @KefSchecter Then use newlines as separators, but you'll lose support for newlines in file names. Jul 15, 2015 at 8:15
  • 1
    The above is for python2. If you only have python3, some small changes: python3 -c 'import os, sys; times = {} for f in sys.stdin.readlines(): f = f[0:-1]; times[f] = os.stat(f).st_mtime for f in (sorted(times.keys(), key=lambda f:times[f], reverse=True))[:10]: print(f);'
    – Goblinhack
    Dec 12, 2017 at 15:33
  • Your #2 solution works (it's the only one I've tried). The answer checked as "valid" doen't work properly (not the last touched files). Apr 8, 2022 at 7:31
61

You don't need to PHP or Python, just ls:

man ls:
-t     sort by modification time
-r,    reverse order while sorting (--reverse )
-1     list one file per line

find /wherever/your/files/hide -type f -exec ls -1rt "{}" +;

If command * exits with a failure status (ie Argument list too long), then you can iterate with find. Paraphrased from: The maximum length of arguments for a new process

  • find . -print0|xargs -0 command (optimizes speed, if find doesn't implement "-exec +" but knows "-print0")
  • find . -print|xargs command (if there's no white space in the arguments)

If the major part of the arguments consists of long, absolute or relative paths, then try to move your actions into the directory: cd /directory/with/long/path; command * And another quick fix may be to match fewer arguments: command [a-e]*; command [f-m]*; ...


2023 update

The xargs solution does not really work, because it will output in several batches, so you would find the latest file in each batch, as opposed to the latest file of all.

A practical solution with gnu-find can be found in my local-bin repo:

reproduced here:

#!/bin/bash
function strip_1() { awk ' BEGIN{ RS="\0"} { $1="" ; gsub(/^\s/,"", $0); print }'; }
function strip_1n() { awk '{ $1="" ; gsub(/^\s/,"", $0); print }'; }
function n2z() { tr \\n \\0; }
find=/usr/bin/find
if [[ $0 == *latest0 ]]; then
    $find ${1:-./} -not -path '*/.git/*' -type f -printf "%T@ %p\0" | sort -nz | n2z | strip_1 | n2z
else
    $find ${1:-./} -not -path '*/.git/*' -type f -printf "%T@ %p\n" | sort -n | strip_1n
fi

4
  • 4
    If there are a lot of files, this fails with 'Argument list too long' on the ls.
    – occulus
    Sep 3, 2012 at 8:41
  • 1
    That's true, but I believe the question was "how do I do a simple find..." Sep 3, 2012 at 10:53
  • 3
    ls doesn't quote file names in a way xargs can understand (no -0 option, and the various quote styles are inadequate)
    – Tobu
    Nov 8, 2014 at 23:13
  • 1
    This blog post explains and expands on the solution: elsewebdevelopment.com/…
    – Sumomo
    Jan 12, 2021 at 20:12
22

I have a simple solution that works for both FreeBSD (OS X) and Linux:

find . -type f -exec ls -t {} +
4
  • 1
    This works perfectly - should be correct answer, or at least higher rated! Jun 14, 2019 at 8:13
  • 1
    find . -type f -exec ls -lat {} + gives you a better picture with date and time showing if somebody needs this format
    – jturi
    Feb 11, 2020 at 14:21
  • 3
    This should be the best answer. Simple, easy to understand. The key is the plus sign in the end. This allows the find to call ls once only.
    – HKTonyLee
    Mar 24, 2022 at 23:35
  • 2
    Only works reliably as long as all filenames returned by find . fit on one command line, subject to the platform's ARG_MAX.
    – Kevin E
    Feb 28, 2023 at 21:49
19

Extending user195696's answer:

find . -type f -printf "%T@\t%Tc %6k KiB %p\n" | sort -n | cut -f 2-

For each file, this first outputs the numeric timestamp (for sorting by, followed by tabulation \t), then a human-readable timestamp, then the filesize (unfortunately find's -printf can't do in mebibytes, only kibibytes), then the filename with relative path.

Then sort -n sorts it by the first numeric field.

Then cut gets rid of that first numeric field which is of no interest to the user. (Prints second field onward.) The default field separator is \t or tabulation.

Example of output:

Thu 06 Feb 2014 04:49:14 PM EST     64 KiB ./057_h2_f7_10/h2_f7_10.class
Fri 07 Feb 2014 02:08:30 AM EST 7962976 KiB ./056_h2_f7_400/h2__rh_4e-4.mph
Fri 07 Feb 2014 02:23:24 AM EST 7962976 KiB ./056_h2_f7_400/h2_f7_400_out_Model.mph
Fri 07 Feb 2014 02:23:24 AM EST      0 KiB ./056_h2_f7_400/h2_f7_400_out.mph.status
Fri 07 Feb 2014 02:23:24 AM EST     64 KiB ./056_h2_f7_400/1579678.out
Fri 07 Feb 2014 03:47:31 AM EST 8132224 KiB ./057_h2_f7_10/h2__rh_1e-5.mph
Fri 07 Feb 2014 04:00:49 AM EST 8132224 KiB ./057_h2_f7_10/h2_f7_10_out_Model.mph
Fri 07 Feb 2014 04:00:49 AM EST      0 KiB ./057_h2_f7_10/h2_f7_10_out.mph.status
Fri 07 Feb 2014 04:00:49 AM EST     64 KiB ./057_h2_f7_10/1579679.out
Fri 07 Feb 2014 09:47:18 AM EST   9280 KiB ./056_h2_f7_400/h2__rh_4e-4.mat
Fri 07 Feb 2014 10:51:23 AM EST   9728 KiB ./018_bidomain/h2_plain__rh_1e-5.mat
Fri 07 Feb 2014 10:58:33 AM EST   9568 KiB ./057_h2_f7_10/h2__rh_1e-5.mat
Fri 07 Feb 2014 05:05:38 PM EST     64 KiB ./058_h2_f7_stationary/h2_f7_stationary.java
Fri 07 Feb 2014 06:06:29 PM EST     32 KiB ./058_h2_f7_stationary/slurm.slurm
Sat 08 Feb 2014 03:42:07 AM EST      0 KiB ./058_h2_f7_stationary/1581061.err
Sat 08 Feb 2014 03:42:14 AM EST     64 KiB ./058_h2_f7_stationary/h2_f7_stationary.class
Sat 08 Feb 2014 03:58:28 AM EST  70016 KiB ./058_h2_f7_stationary/h2s__rh_1e-5.mph
Sat 08 Feb 2014 04:12:40 AM EST  70304 KiB ./058_h2_f7_stationary/h2s__rh_4e-4.mph
Sat 08 Feb 2014 04:12:53 AM EST  70304 KiB ./058_h2_f7_stationary/h2_f7_stationary_out_Model.mph
Sat 08 Feb 2014 04:12:53 AM EST      0 KiB ./058_h2_f7_stationary/h2_f7_stationary_out.mph.status
Sat 08 Feb 2014 04:12:53 AM EST     32 KiB ./058_h2_f7_stationary/1581061.out
Mon 10 Feb 2014 11:40:54 AM EST    224 KiB ./058_h2_f7_stationary/h2s__rh_4e-4.mat
Mon 10 Feb 2014 11:42:32 AM EST    224 KiB ./058_h2_f7_stationary/h2s__rh_1e-5.mat
Mon 10 Feb 2014 11:50:08 AM EST     32 KiB ./plot_grid.m

I deliberately made the filesize field 6 characters, because if making it longer, it becomes hard to visually distinguish how large the files are. This way, files larger than 1e6 KiB jut out: by 1 char means 1-9 GB, by 2 chars means 10-99 GB, etc.


Edit: here's another version (since find . -printf "%Tc" crashes on MinGW/MSYS):

find . -type f -printf "%T@\t%p\n" | sort -n | cut -f 2- | xargs -I{} ls -Glath --si {}

Giving output like:

-rw-r--r-- 1 es 23K Jul 10  2010 ./laptop_0000071.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 es 43M Jul 29 19:19 ./work.xcf
-rw-r--r-- 1 es 87K Jul 29 20:11 ./patent_lamps/US Patent 274427 Maxim Lamp Holder.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 es 151K Jul 29 20:12 ./patent_lamps/Edison screw-in socket.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 es 50K Jul 29 20:13 ./patent_lamps/1157 Lamp.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 es 38K Jul 29 20:14 ./patent_lamps/US06919684-20050719-D00001.png

Where:

  • -I{} causes the occurrence of {} to be replaced by an argument, and newlines are now the argument separators (note the spaces in filenames above).

  • ls -G suppresses printing the group name (waste of space).

  • ls -h --si produces human-readable file sizes (more correct with --si).

  • ls -t sorts by time, which is irrelevant here, but that's what I typically use.

3
  • 1
    Note: to sort by file size instead, simply replace the T@ by s in either of the above commands. Dec 23, 2014 at 4:43
  • this one seems to be the quickest
    – mekb
    Sep 6, 2021 at 13:36
  • Note that this doesn't support linefeeds in filenames. Nov 16, 2022 at 9:29
13

You do only need ls

You could do find /wherever/your/files/hide -type f -exec ls -1rt "{}" +; as stated above,

or

ls -1rt `find /wherever/your/file/hides -type f`
5
  • 4
    If there are a lot of files, this fails with 'Argument list too long' on the ls. Maybe recook to use xargs?
    – occulus
    Sep 3, 2012 at 8:41
  • 4
    But if xargs calls ls multiple times, the sort will be broken. Nov 2, 2015 at 17:48
  • This fails for files with spaces in their names. Any advice?
    – user74094
    Jan 19, 2018 at 14:16
  • Just stumbled upon this answer and it was exactly what I needed in a similar situation. Question: what does the +; at the end do? It seems to give the same result without the ; however it does not work without the + ?
    – RocketNuts
    Mar 21, 2019 at 23:36
  • This is just the same as another answer posted 8 months before, except for the part about using "ls -1rt `find …`", which is broken
    – Clément
    Apr 13, 2019 at 19:16
7

OS X variant of @user195696's answer:

  1. With timestamp:

     find . -type f -exec stat -f "%Sm %N" -t "%Y%y%m%d%H%M" {} \; | sort -r
    
  2. Without timestamp:

     find . -type f -exec stat -f "%Sm %N" -t "%Y%y%m%d%H%M" {} \; | sort -r | awk -F' ' '{ print substr($0, length($1) + 2) }'
    

    or, alternatively,

     find . -type f -exec stat -f "%Sm %N" -t "%Y%y%m%d%H%M" {} \; | sort -r | cut -d ' ' -f2-
    

As with many of the other answers, this will fail for filenames that contain newline(s), but it should work for filenames that contain (horizontal) whitespace.

4

Here is a clean and robust way for sort | head by date:

Using ls -l for pretty print

find . ! -type d -printf "%T@ %p\0" |
    sort -zrn |
    head -zn 10 |
    sed -z 's/^[0-9.]\+ //' |
    xargs -0 ls -lt

As a function:

findByDate() {
    local humansize=''
    [ "$1" = "-h" ] && humansize='h' && shift
    find . ${2:-! -type d} -printf "%T@ %p\0" |
        sort -zrn |
        head -zn ${1:--0} |
        sed -z 's/^[0-9.]\+ //' |
        xargs -0 ls -dlt${humansize}
}

This could by run with one or two argument, or even without:

Usage: findByDate [-h] [lines] [find options]

Sample:

findByDate

Will list all non directories sorted by date. Nota:

Even on big filesystem tree, as xargs recieve already sorted list, the file order stay correct, even if ls must be run many times.

findByDate -h 12

Will list 12 more recents non directories sorted by date, with size printed in human readable form

findByDate 42 '-type l'

Will list 42 more recents symlinks

findByDate -0 '( -type l -o -type b -o -type s -o -type c )'

Will list all symlinks, block devices, sockets and characters devices, sorted by date.

Inverting order

Replacing head by tail and change switch of sort and ls:

findByDate() {
    local humansize=''
    [ "$1" = "-h" ] && humansize='h' && shift
    find . ${2:-! -type d} -printf "%T@ %p\0" |
        sort -zn |
        tail -zn ${1:-+0} |
        sed -z 's/^[0-9.]\+ //' |
        xargs -0 ls -dltr${humansize}
}

Same function, same usage:

Usage: findByDate [-h] [lines] [find options]
2

I found that this gets the job done on Mac OS X (and generic enough to work on other Unixen as well):

find . -type f -ls | awk '{print $(NF-3), $(NF-2), $(NF-1), $NF}' | sort
2
  • 3
    Sadly, this prints out localized month names on my Croatian setup, making sort incorrect. Apr 15, 2013 at 20:19
  • user195696's answer works for the Croatian setup (and others). Dec 27, 2016 at 14:13
2

Try:

find '$dir' -name '$str'\* -print | xargs ls -tl | head -10

But it's also useful to filter data by -mmin/-mtime and -type.

1

If your find selection is very simple, you might be able to do without it, and just use ls:

ls -1 *.cc # -r -t optional
1

Use:

find . -type f -mtime 0 -printf "[%TD %TI:%TM%Tp] %s %p\n" | sort -n | awk '{
    hum[1024**4]="TB"; hum[1024**3]="GB"; hum[1024**2]="MB"; hum[1024]="KB"; hum[0]="B";
    for (x=1024**4; x>=1024; x/=1024){
    if ($3>=x) { printf $1" "$2"\t%7.2f %s\t%s\n",$3/x,hum[x],$4;break }
    }}';

This command will sort files by modified date.

And display out like:

[12/05/13 03:10PM] 1.75 MB ./file.text
[12/06/13 11:52PM] 2.90 MB ./file2.mp4
[12/07/13 04:11PM] 4.88 MB ./file3.mp4
[12/07/13 09:17PM] 4.74 MB ./test.apk
1
0

I don't think find has any options to modify the output ordering. -mtime and -mmin will let you restrict the results to files that have been modified within a certain time window, but the output won't be sorted -- you'll have to do that yourself. GNU find has a -printf option that, among other things, will let you print the modification time of each file found (format strings %t or %Tk) ; that might help you sort the find output the way you wish.

0

I improved Akashs answer by making the script handling whitespace in filenames correctly:

find . -type f -mtime 0 -printf ";[%TD %TI:%TM%Tp];%s;%p\n" | sort -n | awk -F ";" '{
    hum[1024**4]="TB"; hum[1024**3]="GB"; hum[1024**2]="MB"; hum[1024]="KB"; hum[0]="B";
    for (x=1024**4; x>=1024; x/=1024){
    if ($3>=x) { printf $1" "$2"\t%7.2f %s\t%s\n",$3/x,hum[x],$4;break }
    }}';
0

If you want to order all PNG files by time in $PWD:

This simple one-liner gives all the flexibility of regexp on find and on ls.

find $PWD -name "*.png" -print0 | xargs -0 ls -laht | less
0

You can use stat on BSD and Linux (not on POSIX) in this fashion:

$ stat -f "%m%t%N" /[the dir]/* | sort -rn | cut -f2-

If you want to limit the number:

$ stat -f "%m%t%N" /[the dir]/* | sort -rn | head -[the number] | cut -f2-
0

Much better and safer with fd:

fd "<regex>" "<dir>" --exec find {} -printf "%T@ %Td-%Tb-%TY %TT %p\n" |
 sort -n | cut -d " " -f 2-
-1

If you just want to get a full path of each item you can write down like this.

 find FIND_ROOT -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf "%T@ %p\n" | sort -nr | head -10 | cut -d ' ' -f 2

Where
-printf "%T@ %p\n" for giving sorting criteria (date),
'sort -nr' for sorting by date,
head -10 for listing top 10 results,
cut -d ' ' -f 2 for cutting the leading timestamp on each line.

1
-3

I have a simple solution.

After cd to a directory, use

find . -iname "*" -ls

1
  • 2
    This doesn't sort by date modified.
    – DavidPostill
    Mar 25, 2017 at 9:40

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