GNU findutils

Name: GNU findutils
Author: GNU Project

The GNU command-line tools for finding files: find, locate, updatedb and xargs.

Open source (GPL-3.0-or-later)By GNU Project

Free Open sourceLinux Command line

Official websitegnu.org

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Alternatives

uutils findutilsuutils findutils is a Rust implementation of find, xargs, locate and updatedb tested against the GNU suite, though not yet compatible with every GNU option.
plocateplocate replaces locate with a trigram index that answers file name lookups in milliseconds with a smaller index, but covers only the locate part.
bfsbfs keeps find's existing syntax unchanged while searching breadth-first so shallow matches appear first, and is compatible with GNU, BSD and POSIX find.
GNU ParallelA command-line utility that runs shell commands and scripts in parallel across CPU cores or machines.
fdfd replaces find with a shorter syntax, smart case and parallel traversal that respects gitignore, but does not aim to cover all of find's functionality.
ripgrepSearches a whole directory tree for a pattern in a fraction of the time grep takes, and skips what gitignore says to skip.

See all alternatives

About GNU findutils

GNU findutils is the package that supplies the basic directory searching tools of the GNU system. find walks a directory tree and reports every file matching the given criteria, locate searches a prebuilt database of file names for a much faster lookup, updatedb refreshes that database, and xargs builds and runs command lines from standard input.

The tools are designed to be combined with other commands, for example passing the results of find to xargs to act on many files at once. It suits anyone working in a Unix-style shell.

Strengths

Powerful file matching by name, type, size, time and more
locate gives very fast lookups from a file name database
xargs runs commands over large lists of files

Limitations

locate results are only as current as the last updatedb run
Option syntax is dense and takes time to learn

Details

Pricing: FreeFree software from the GNU Project.
License: GPL-3.0-or-later
Developer: GNU Project
Platforms: Linux, Command line
How it runs: Downloadable app
Account: Not required
Works offline: Yes
Best suited for: Searching for files and acting on them from a Unix shell
Categories: CLI tools
Last verified: October 1, 2026
Added: October 1, 2026
Sources: gnu.org/software/findutils

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