KFind

From KDE Wiki Sandbox
  Find files by name, type or content

KFind can be used as a standalone file search tool, launched by KRunner or from your menu. It is also integrated into Konqueror and Dolphin as Find File in the Tools menu. Being equipped with a graphical user interface, it is often handier than the command line tool named find which requires advanced skills in instruction syntax formulation.

A search is configured in a 3-tab window.

The Name/Location tab

  • Specify a file name
    • use wildcards * and ? in the name
  • Specify a starting directory
  • Decide whether you want to also search sub-directories
  • Specify whether the search should be case-sensitive
  • Specify whether hidden files to be shown as well


The Contents tab

  • Select the file type to be search
  • Specify the search term
    • it can be useful to have '*' set in the file name field in the Name/Location tab
  • Select case sensitivity
  • Should binary files be searched?
Note
A Contents search is necessarily much slower than a filename search, so be as specific as you can when defining it.


The Properties tab

  • Find files by creation date
  • Limit the criteria by age - e.g. "during the previous 2 hours"
  • Find files by size - e.g. "At Least 2 MB"
  • Limit the result to files owned by a specific user or group

All criteria set will be honoured in your search - you are not limited to the specifications in one tab, so you could search for any file in the directory /home or any directory below that, containing the word "Silkstone" which must be capitalized, and is owned by the group "Accounts".