KFind

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

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".