What does the -mtime option for find actually do?

Question

I cant find any documentation surround this option in google. I assume it looks for files created within x amount of days? but a quick and precise definition would be appreciated.

Rather than searching Google for this, why not look at the manual on your system? man find will tell you what the option does, with the added bonus that it will be correct for the implementation of find on your system. — Kusalananda, May 25 '17 at 16:00

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 25 '17 at 16:18

2

From the find manual:

 -mtime n
      File's data was last modified n*24 hours ago.  See the comments for 
      -atime to understand how rounding  affects  the  interpretation  of
      file  modification times.

See also Why does find -mtime +1 only return files older than 2 days? for an explanation of the rounding behavior.

edited May 25 '17 at 16:18

derobert

109,670

answered May 25 '17 at 16:05

I_GNU_it_all_along

1,712

1

I checked the man pages and did not see that option in there. Thank you for the exerp. – Alex Lorsung May 25 '17 at 20:22

What does the -mtime option for find actually do?

1 Answers1