Find files in created between a date range

sanjuro8998 picture sanjuro8998 · Aug 20, 2013 · Viewed 137.6k times · Source

I use AIX via telnet here at work, and I'd like to know how to find files in a specific folder between a date range. For example: I want to find all files in folder X that were created between 01-Aug-13 and 31-Aug-13.

Observations:

  • The touch trick (where you create two empty files to use the -newer option) does not work for me, once the user roles that I have on the server does not allow me to create files.
  • I need to find between specific dates, not days (like: files that were created more than 30 days ago, etc...)

Answer

codebeard picture codebeard · May 7, 2014

If you use GNU find, since version 4.3.3 you can do:

find -newerct "1 Aug 2013" ! -newerct "1 Sep 2013" -ls

It will accept any date string accepted by GNU date -d.

You can change the c in -newerct to any of a, B, c, or m for looking at atime/birth/ctime/mtime.

Another example - list files modified between 17:30 and 22:00 on Nov 6 2017:

find -newermt "2017-11-06 17:30:00" ! -newermt "2017-11-06 22:00:00" -ls

Full details from man find:

   -newerXY reference
          Compares the timestamp of the current file with reference.  The reference argument is normally the name of a file (and one of its timestamps  is  used
          for  the  comparison)  but  it may also be a string describing an absolute time.  X and Y are placeholders for other letters, and these letters select
          which time belonging to how reference is used for the comparison.

          a   The access time of the file reference
          B   The birth time of the file reference
          c   The inode status change time of reference
          m   The modification time of the file reference
          t   reference is interpreted directly as a time

          Some combinations are invalid; for example, it is invalid for X to be t.  Some combinations are not implemented on all systems; for example B  is  not
          supported on all systems.  If an invalid or unsupported combination of XY is specified, a fatal error results.  Time specifications are interpreted as
          for the argument to the -d option of GNU date.  If you try to use the birth time of a reference file, and the birth time cannot be determined, a fatal
          error  message  results.   If  you  specify a test which refers to the birth time of files being examined, this test will fail for any files where the
          birth time is unknown.