We already know how to organize the similar type of files in specific folders in Linux and Unix-like operating systems. In that method, we learned to organize the similar type of files in a folder. In other words, the files have been organized based on their extension. We don't know whether the file is new or old one. We simply put the same type of files in a folder. Today, in this guide, we are going to find and sort files based on access and modification date and time, not extension. In case, if you want to find a particular file accessed or modified on a particular date or time, you're on the right track. Read on.
Table of Contents
Find and sort files based on access, modification date and time in Linux
You don't need to install any extra applications to find and sort files. For the purpose of this guide, we are going to use three Linux commands namely ls, find and sort. These commands are the part of Linux Kernel, so don't bother installing them.
As may already know, the ls command lists a directory contents with additional information such as date and time of modification or access, permissions, size, owner, group etc. It will sort the entries of the given directory, alphabetically. If you didn't mention the directory, it will list the contents of current working directory.
The find command is used to search for files in a directory hierarchy.
The sort command sorts the lines of text files and writes sorted concatenation of all FILE(s) to standard output.
1. Find and sort files based on last access time using ls command
The following command will list files based on the last access time. The newest files will be listed first.
$ ls -ltu
Sample output:
total 104 drwxr-xr-x 18 sk users 4096 May 3 18:02 Personal drwxr-xr-x 3 sk users 4096 May 3 11:57 Notebooks drwxr-xr-x 9 sk users 4096 May 3 11:57 Official drwxrwxr-x 3 sk users 4096 May 3 11:57 en-TED drwxr-xr-x 5 sk users 4096 May 3 11:57 Soft_Backup drwxr-xr-x 9 sk users 4096 May 3 11:57 'VirtualBox VMs' drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 3 11:57 Wallpapers drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 3 11:57 Public drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 3 11:57 Documents drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 3 11:57 Music drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 3 11:57 Videos drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 3 11:56 Desktop drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 3 11:56 Templates drwxr-xr-x 5 sk users 4096 May 2 20:53 Entertainment -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 951 May 2 20:52 'pre code.txt' -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 50 May 2 20:52 file.txt drwxr-xr-x 11 sk users 20480 May 2 20:34 Downloads drwxr-xr-x 5 sk users 12288 May 2 20:13 Pictures
Here,
- -u - Sort by access time, newest first
2. Find and sort files based on modification time using ls command
To list files based on the modification time, run:
$ ls -lt
Here,
- -l - Indicates long listing format,
- -t - Sort by modification time, newest first.
Sample output:
total 104 drwxr-xr-x 11 sk users 20480 May 2 20:34 Downloads drwxr-xr-x 5 sk users 12288 May 1 17:32 Pictures drwxr-xr-x 9 sk users 4096 May 1 16:45 'VirtualBox VMs' drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 Apr 24 20:30 Documents drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 Apr 11 13:02 Desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 951 Apr 7 20:20 'pre code.txt' drwxr-xr-x 9 sk users 4096 Mar 27 19:31 Official -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 50 Mar 23 20:24 file.txt drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 Mar 21 17:43 Videos drwxr-xr-x 3 sk users 4096 Mar 14 16:32 Notebooks drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 Jan 7 14:55 Music drwxr-xr-x 18 sk users 4096 Dec 19 14:36 Personal drwxrwxr-x 3 sk users 4096 Nov 30 01:57 en-TED drwxr-xr-x 5 sk users 4096 Aug 20 2016 Entertainment drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 11 2016 Public drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 11 2016 Templates drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 9 2016 Wallpapers drwxr-xr-x 5 sk users 4096 May 4 2016 Soft_Backup
The above command will sort the files of the current working directory based on the modification time. The newest files will be displayed first.
To list the files of a specific directory based on modification time, type:
$ ls -lt ~/Downloads/
To list the files in reverse order, i.e oldest files first, use 'r' flag like below:
$ ls -ltr
3. Find and sort files based on last modification time using ls command
The command lists the files based on the last modification time. It means, this command lists the files first whose any status information (such as owner, group, permissions, size etc) have been recently changed.
$ ls -ltc
Sample output:
total 104 drwxr-xr-x 11 sk users 20480 May 2 20:34 Downloads drwxr-xr-x 5 sk users 12288 May 1 17:32 Pictures drwxr-xr-x 9 sk users 4096 May 1 16:45 'VirtualBox VMs' drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 Apr 24 20:30 Documents drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 Apr 11 13:02 Desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 50 Apr 8 16:28 file.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 951 Apr 7 20:20 'pre code.txt' drwxr-xr-x 9 sk users 4096 Mar 27 19:31 Official drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 Mar 21 17:43 Videos drwxr-xr-x 3 sk users 4096 Mar 14 16:32 Notebooks drwxrwxr-x 3 sk users 4096 Jan 18 12:36 en-TED drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 Jan 7 14:55 Music drwxr-xr-x 18 sk users 4096 Dec 19 14:36 Personal drwxr-xr-x 5 sk users 4096 Aug 20 2016 Entertainment drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 11 2016 Public drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 11 2016 Templates drwxr-xr-x 2 sk users 4096 May 9 2016 Wallpapers drwxr-xr-x 5 sk users 4096 May 9 2016 Soft_Backup
Here,
- -c - Sort by last modification time
4. Find and sort files based on date
The following command lists the files based on last accessed date and time. Newest files will be listed first.
$ find /home/sk/ostechnix/ -type f -printf "\n%AD %AT %p" | head -n 10
Sample output:
04/27/17 15:51:16.4508342970 /home/sk/ostechnix/The Devops toolkit.pdf 04/27/17 15:51:17.1375009660 /home/sk/ostechnix/THE LINUX COMMAND LINE.pdf 04/27/17 15:51:12.9508342850 /home/sk/ostechnix/Google power search.pdf 04/27/17 15:51:10.3475009420 /home/sk/ostechnix/Docker.pdf 04/27/17 15:51:14.0108342880 /home/sk/ostechnix/Linux Shell Scripting.pdf 04/27/17 15:51:17.4208343000 /home/sk/ostechnix/WpPMaq8.jpg 04/27/17 15:51:12.7675009510 /home/sk/ostechnix/DoubleClick_Mobile_Web_Speed_Toolkit.pdf 04/27/17 15:51:01.9308342460 /home/sk/ostechnix/Ed Sheeran - Shape Of You.mp3 04/27/17 15:51:02.7341675830 /home/sk/ostechnix/tor-browser_en-US/start-tor-browser.desktop
In the above output, the first column shows the last accessed date of the file, second column shows the last accessed time and third column shows the name of file. Here, 'head -n 10' is not the number files. It is number of entries in the output including the blank spaces.
Also, you can use "sort" command with "ls" command to list the files based on last accessed month, date, and time like below.
$ ls -l ostechnix/ | sort -k6M -k7n | head -n 10
Sample output:
total 44024 drwx------ 3 sk users 4096 Apr 27 15:51 tor-browser_en-US drwxr-xr-x 3 sk users 4096 Apr 27 15:51 Arch master -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 183396 Apr 27 15:51 Linux commandline cheat sheet.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 2031375 Apr 27 15:51 Google power search.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 233955 Apr 27 15:51 bash_tips.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 2597261 Apr 27 15:51 Docker.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 270623 Apr 27 15:51 sag-0.6.1.pdf.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 3857569 Apr 27 15:51 THE LINUX COMMAND LINE.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 sk users 3902301 Apr 27 15:51 Ed Sheeran - Shape Of You.mp3
Here,
- -k6M - Lists files monthly wise (6th field) in the output.
- -k7n - Lists files date wise (7th field) in the output.
And, that's all. You know now how to find and sort files based on the access, modification time and date in Linux. As you can see in the above examples, it is fairly easy to sort the files. For more details, refer man pages of each command.
$ man ls
$ man find
$ man sort
