Search files with locate

The locate command in Linux enables a fast search for filenames from a compiled database of the filesystem. This is similar in sprit to the Everything search tool on Windows. Note that locate is different from the find command which does a live walk of the filesystem tree and so can be very slow.

• Install: The search tool locate and its database creator updatedb ship in a single package that can be installed:

$ sudo apt install locate

• Update the database: A cron job to update the database runs regularly, but if you wish to update the DB with the current state of the filesystem manually:

$ sudo updatedb

Search

• Searching is straightforward and wildcards are supported:

$ locate foobar
$ locate foo*

• To do a case-insensitive search:

$ locate -i foobar

• To check if the file exists in the filesystem before returning the result:

$ locate -e foobar

References

• man locate
• man updatedb

Tried with: locate 4.8.0 and Ubuntu 22.04