Equivalent of Unix find command on Windows

Question

What is the equivalent of the Unix find command on Windows?

I see that the find.exe on Windows is more like a grep. I am especially interested in the equivalent of

find . -name [filename]

JohannesM · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-25T12:19:34.403

41

dir <drive: [drive:]> /s | findstr /i <pattern>

- alternative -

dir /s <drive:>\<pattern>

example

dir c: d: /s | findstr /i example.txt

- alternative -

dir /s c:\example.txt

edited Jun 25 '12 at 12:19

answered Mar 16 '12 at 15:16

JohannesM

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`dir c: /s example.txt` works, too. – DevSolar Jun 25 '12 at 11:55
@DevSolar can you recheck your command? I've tested it on Windows 5.1 Build 2600 SP3, and your command just gives me the list of files in the directory c: – JohannesM Jun 25 '12 at 12:07
2

Uh... sorry. Serves me right to type from memory. `dir /s C:\example.txt` it is. – DevSolar Jun 25 '12 at 12:14
1

for the most similar results I use `\b` for brief (output only paths); `find -name ` -> `dir /s /b `. E.g. `find /tmp -name *.txt` -> `dir \s \b C:\temp\*.txt`. However `dir` always returns a list of absolute paths, whereas `find` always gives paths prefixed with `` – Hashbrown May 26 '15 at 03:51
2

adding `\B` to `\S` allows to have a more terse output, with 1 file per line with full path,, no headers, no size info, etc... – Jean-François Fabre Apr 23 '20 at 08:06

score 37 · Answer 2 · answered May 14 '15 at 22:13

37

With no additional cmdlets installed, you can simply use Get-ChildItem:

Get-ChildItem -Filter *.zip -Recurse $pwd

answered May 14 '15 at 22:13

djhaskin987

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In which case you probably want to use one of the short aliases `dir`, `ls` or `gci`, unless you are writing a script. – Aug 31 '18 at 07:14

Jagadish G · Answer 3 · 2015-02-03T08:03:18.507

28

The Find-ChildItem Cmdlet in Windows Powershell is an equivalent of Unix/Linux find command

http://windows-powershell-scripts.blogspot.in/2009/08/unix-linux-find-equivalent-in.html

Some of Find-ChildItem Options

Find-ChildItem -Type f -Name ".*.exe"
Find-ChildItem -Type f -Name "\.c$" -Exec "Get-Content {} | Measure-Object -Line -Character -Word"
Find-ChildItem -Type f -Empty
Find-ChildItem -Type f -Empty -OutObject
Find-ChildItem -Type f -Empty -Delete
Find-ChildItem -Type f -Size +9M -Delete
Find-ChildItem -Type d
Find-ChildItem -Type f -Size +50m -WTime +5 -MaxDepth 1 -Delete

Disclosure: I am the developer of Find-ChildItem cmdlet

edited Feb 03 '15 at 08:03

answered Jun 25 '12 at 08:32

Jagadish G

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Thank you. This is definitely more in mind of what I'd be looking for in answering this question. – supercheetah Feb 02 '15 at 16:37
30

**`Find-ChildItem` is not an official cmdlet and it is not included in PowerShell; you have to download this cmdlet from some guy's OneDrive**. There's no difference between that and just downloading bash, cygwin, unixutils or any other program that just lets you run UNIX's `find`. – walen Apr 18 '18 at 13:49
@jagadish-g A bloody shame it's not already been integrated to PS long time ago. Did you try to file a PR in the powershell github repo. – not2qubit Apr 29 '20 at 22:15
1

...and link is dead. – not2qubit Sep 25 '20 at 19:51

score 8 · Answer 4 · edited Dec 25 '16 at 09:35

If you are using Unix's find to search for files in a directory hierarchy, then the Powershell way is to use Get-ChildItem (alias is gci) cmdlet and filter the results with the Where-Object (alias is where) cmdlet.

For example, to find all files (starting from C:\Users\ and recursively) with the word 'essential' in its name, use the following:

PS> gci -Path "C:\Users\"  -Recurse | where {$_.Name -like '*essential*'}

The -like option allows you to use wildcards for pattern matching.

Bill Moore · Answer 5 · 2017-12-19T20:04:27.817

This one is not exactly GNU find, but more closely matches the linux command line philisophy under powershell:

PS> dir -recurse -ea 0 | % FullName | sls <grep_string>

Example:

PS> cd C:\
PS> dir -recurse -ea 0 | % FullName | sls "Program" | sls "Microsoft"
PS> dir -recurse -ea 0 | % FullName | sls "Program" | sls "Microsoft" | out-gridview

Note: Everything returned after "| % FullName" is a string, instead of an object.

You can also use the Where Operator, "?", however, its more work, and not much faster:

PS> cd C:\
PS> dir -Recurse -ea 0 | ? FullName -like "*Program*" 
                       | ? FullName -like "*Microsoft*" 
                       | % FullName 
                       | out-gridview

Here's a quick shortcut:

PS> function myfind {dir -recurse -ea 0 | % FullName | sls $args }

PS> cd C:\
PS> myfind "Programs" | sls "Microsoft"

#find all text files recursively from current directory
PS> myfind "\.txt$"

#find all files recursively from current directory
PS> myfind .

Find -exec grep {} from UnixUtils doesn't work properly it seems "no such file or directory". This solution: PowerShell.exe -Command "dir -Recurse -ea 0 | ? FullName -like '*.log' | sls error", from within a batch script works. Note: must use single quotes inside, double quotes outside. — Kevin, Nov 06 '18 at 16:18

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 02 '21 at 00:29

2

In PowerShell you can use Get-ChildItem (aka ls), as noted in other answers.

ls . -Filter *.zip -Recurse

It might also be useful to get full paths of files instead of short names.

(ls -Path . -Filter *.zip -Recurse).FullName

And you can also easily execute arbitrary commands on the files found.

(ls -Path . -Filter *.zip -Recurse).FullName | ForEach-Object -Process {
    # The $_ variable is the path to a located file.
    echo "Found file: $_"
}

answered Feb 02 '21 at 00:29

Serid

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4

I think that's by far the best answer.` `(ls -r).FullName` is basically the same es a simple `find` in Linux. – maxauthority Jan 27 '23 at 12:56

Justin · Answer 7 · 2020-11-20T18:53:17.183

1

ls c:\ file.ext -r

You can use this simple powershell command. use -ErrorAction Ignore to get rid of permission errors.

edited Nov 20 '20 at 18:53

answered Nov 19 '20 at 01:13

Justin

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I like the simplicity. Adding `-name` makes it an even simpler listing of names only. – Noumenon Jan 31 '21 at 17:39

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 27 '21 at 20:49

1

While not a full substitute, this simple batch file solved most of the problem for me:

# findw.bat
# 
# usage: findw dir search-pattern
#
dir %1 /s /b | findstr /i %2

answered Feb 27 '21 at 20:49

sramam

11
1

score 0 · Answer 9 · edited Dec 12 '21 at 17:34

0

You can use get-childitem very similar to find.

get-childitem -recurse [startpath] -name [filetofind]

[startpath] is the path where recursion should begin (e.g. . for the current directory)

[filetofind] is what you are looking for.

It is even possible to do this from cmd (without interactieve powershell):

powershell -command "get-childitem -recurse [startpath] -name [filetofind]"

edited Dec 12 '21 at 17:34

ZygD

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answered Dec 12 '21 at 17:27

Anke

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Equivalent of Unix find command on Windows

9 Answers9

example

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