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I want to use find but sort the results reverse chronologically as with ls -ltr. Is this possible through any combo of flags or pipelines?

dan
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    Best way is 'find -exec ls -ltr {} +'. – gaoithe Mar 07 '17 at 13:45
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    @gaoithe That works only up to a certain number of files. Beyond that, the files will be split in batches. – Dennis Mar 16 '17 at 01:09
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    Voting to reopen because https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/20611/list-files-larger-than-size-sorted-by-date wants only in current directory "and subdirectories, which I don't want". – Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com Apr 08 '19 at 10:19
  • Yeah, this isn't a duplicate at all. Even the answers of the two questions are distinct. – Wayne Conrad Jun 04 '20 at 13:51
  • To find all files on disk sorted by date, I use sudo find / -printf "%T+ %p\n" | grep -v "/proc/" | grep -v "/sys/" | sort | less +G (I remove proc and sys on purpose here). – Basj Sep 14 '21 at 07:52

2 Answers2

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Use find's -printf command to output both the time (in a sortable way) and the file, then sort. If you use GNU find,

find . your-options -printf "%T+ %p\n" | sort

For convenience here is an explanation of the -printf "%T+ %p\n" from man find:

  • %Tk File's last modification time in the format specified by k, which is the same as for %A.
    • where k in this case is set to +
    • + Date and time, separated by +, for example `2004-04-28+22:22:05.0'. This is a GNU extension. The time is given in the current timezone (which may be affected by setting the TZ environment variable). The seconds field includes a fractional part.
  • %p File's name.
angus
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    sort -r for reverse order. – stnly Jan 24 '12 at 15:12
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    ls -t sorts newer to older, sort sorts older to newer. So ls -t's reverse order is sort's normal order. – angus Jan 24 '12 at 15:19
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    Do you have a version for OS X (non-gnu)? – Ortomala Lokni Aug 25 '16 at 15:48
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    @OrtomalaLokni No, sorry. Looking at the man page I'd say it would entail using the -ls argument and then cut (or awk) to extract the desired fields.... but better ask a new question about it, and somebody will come up with a complete answer. – angus Aug 25 '16 at 17:13
  • This does not work if you're using -or to combine multiple iname options in find. The -printf only prints the results of the last ORed condition. Any thoughts on how to work around that? – SSilk Jan 03 '17 at 15:04
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    For OS X and non-GNU, use this answer. – Tom Hale Jan 11 '17 at 04:46
  • @SSilk Group your expression: find . your-options \( your-expression \) -printf "..." | sort. – angus Jan 11 '17 at 13:51
  • Dont work in non-GNU or other distributions... -1 – Brethlosze Nov 28 '17 at 20:36
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    To get this to work with OSX, install findutils from homebrew, then use gfind not find.

    https://stackoverflow.com/questions/752818/find-lacks-the-option-printf-now-what

     – Chris Mar 05 '18 at 00:44
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    @TomHale didn't work on my 10.12.6: find: -printf: unknown primary or operator – Neithan Max Feb 13 '19 at 13:21
  • suspicious result: 1985-10-26+09:15:00.0000000000 app/react/node_modules/abab/CHANGELOG.md (Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS, find (GNU findutils) 4.7.0-git) – webb Jun 10 '20 at 11:15
  • And to get the filename of the lastest file: find YOUR-OPTIONS -printf '%T+\t%p\n' |sort -r |head -1 |cut -s -f2 – EM0 Feb 02 '21 at 16:02
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If that is just a depth-n (assume depth-2) folder hierarchy, I find this one useful:

ls -laht --full-time */*
Ben Usman
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  • This seems to produce a list of files that are exactly two folders deep (no more, no less), along with separate listings of each of the folders that are exactly two folders deep. – mwfearnley Feb 12 '17 at 13:42
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    @mwfearnley that is exactly what I meant by "that is just a depth-n" above :) you can do */*/* if you want depth 3 – Ben Usman Feb 13 '17 at 17:25
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    So basically, your suggestion only works as intended when all the files are exactly n levels deep, and there are no subfolders at that level. You should explain that. The latter might be surmountable by another flag for ls, and you can perhaps cover all levels up to n with ls ... * */* */*/* ... – mwfearnley Feb 14 '17 at 09:26
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    May not work: bash: /bin/ls: Argument list too long – Luc Jan 13 '20 at 10:35