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

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answered May 25 '17 at 16:05

I_GNU_it_all_along

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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