Find & delete files

Damien Bash, Frequently used, Linux, Miscellaneous 
find /path/to/dir -args

Delete empty directories

find /path/to/dir -empty -type d -delete

Delete empty files

find /path/to/dir -empty -type f -delete

Count all empty files or directories

Count empty dirs only 

find /path/to/dir/ -empty -type d | wc -l

Count empty files only 

find /path/to/dir/ -empty -type f | wc -l

Where :

  • -empty : Only find empty files and make sure it is a regular file or a directory.
  • -type d : Only match directories.
  • -type f : Only match files.
  • -delete : Delete files. Always put -delete option at the end of find command as find command line is evaluated as an expression, so putting -delete first will make find try to delete everything below the starting points you specified.

This is useful when you need to clean up empty directories and files in a single command.

Cleanup unnecessary files and Desktop OSses clutter

cd "$SOURCEDIR"
find ./ \( -name ".DS_Store" -or -name "._*" -or -name "Thumbs.db" -or -name "*.tmp" -or -name "*.lnk" -or -name "TemporaryItems" -or -name "folders.501" -or -name ".TemporaryItems" -or -name "__MACOSX" \) -ls -delete

Change ownership of files owned by a specific username

find /path/to/dir/ -user username -exec chown newuser:newgroup {} +