FD

FD Cheatsheet

Basics

• Regex by default. Use -g for glob, -e for extension, -t for type (f,d,l,x).
• Ignores hidden and .gitignored files unless you add -H and/or -I, or -u for both.

Find files by name/extension

# Regex match (default)
fd '.*\.rar$' .

# Glob match
fd -g '*.rar' .

# By extension (fast, exact)
fd -e rar .

Find directories by name

fd -t d 'dirname' .

Case sensitivity

# Smart-case by default: case-insensitive unless pattern has uppercase
fd 'name' .
fd 'Name' .

# Force case-insensitive / case-sensitive
fd -i 'name' .
fd -s 'name' .

Hidden and ignored files

# Include hidden files/dirs
fd -H 'pattern' .

# Do not respect .gitignore/.ignore/.fdignore
fd -I 'pattern' .

# Unrestricted: includes hidden and ignores ignore files
fd -u 'pattern' .

Depth and path options

# Limit search depth
fd -d 2 'pattern' .

# Print absolute paths
fd -a 'pattern' .

Type, size, and time filters

# Files only / directories only
fd -t f 'pattern' .
fd -t d 'pattern' .

# Size filters (k, M, G supported)
fd -t f -S +11G .

# Modified within/before
fd --changed-within 7d .
fd --changed-before '2024-01-01' .

Exclude paths

fd 'pattern' . --exclude .git --exclude node_modules

Execute commands on results

# Per result
fd 'pattern' . -x command {}

# Batch (all results at once; safer for rm/cp/mv)
fd 'pattern' . -X command

Practical examples (similar to your find ones)

Find a file called a specific thing

fd -g '*.rar' .

Find files over 11GB and convert with ffmpeg (per-file)

fd -t f -S +11G . -x bash -lc 'date && ffmpeg -i "{}" -map 0 -map -0:t -map -0:s -c:a aac -c:v libx265 -s 1920:1080 -preset slow -crf 18 "{.}new.mp4" && rm "{}" && mv "{.}new.mp4" "{.}.mp4" && chown ed:ed "{.}.mp4" && date || echo "This task has failed"'

Find all rar archives (including multi-part .r00, .r01, …) and extract them

# Extract in place (cd to file's directory and extract its basename)
fd -t f '\.r(ar|[0-9]{2})$' . -x bash -lc 'cd "{//}" && unrar e "{/}"'

Remove all rar and multi-part files

fd -t f '\.r(ar|[0-9]{2})$' . -X rm -f

Find and count results

fd -t f -S +11G . | wc -l

Find total size of matching files

# GNU du: prints total on last line
fd -t f -S +11G -0 . | du --files0-from=- -ch | tail -n1

Other handy patterns

Copy/move found files

# Copy all .jpg to destination (batch)
fd -t f -e jpg . -X cp -t /path/to/destination   # GNU cp (-t). For portability:
fd -t f -e jpg -0 . | xargs -0 -I{} cp {} /path/to/destination

Delete empty directories

fd -t d -E .git . -x bash -lc 'test -z "$(ls -A "{}")" && rmdir "{}"'

Null-delimited output (safe for spaces/newlines)

fd -0 'pattern' . | xargs -0 -I{} echo "{}"

Notes on placeholders for -x/-X

• {} full path
• {/} basename
• {//} parent directory
• {.} path without extension
• {/.} basename without extension

Examples using placeholders

# Print parent dir and base name
fd -t f . -x echo 'dir="{//}" file="{/}"'

# Run in file's directory
fd -t f . -x bash -lc 'cd "{//}" && do-something "{/}"'