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locate Command Cheat Sheet

locate finds files by name. It is much faster than find because it searches a pre-built database (mlocate.db) instead of crawling the disk.

Synopsis

locate [OPTION]... [PATTERN]...

Basic Usage

Find a File

locate myfile.txt

Case Insensitive (-i)

locate -i MyFile.txt

Limit Output (-n)

Show only the first 5 results.

locate -n 5 *.conf

Regular Expressions (-r)

Use regex for complex patterns.

locate -r '^/usr/.*\.jpg$'

Exact Match

By default locate matches substring (e.g., bin matches /bin, /usr/bin, binary). To match exact filename base:

locate -b '\filename'

Database Management

Update Database

If you just created a file, locate won't find it until the DB updates.

sudo updatedb

Check Existing Files (-e)

Since locate reads a DB, it might list files that were deleted. Use -e to check if file actually exists right now.

locate -e deleted_file

Statistics

See how many files are indexed.

locate -S

Notes

  • Security: updatedb usually runs as root but locate respects permissions (won't show files you can't read) if configured correctly, but purely slocate / mlocate implementations vary.
  • Config: /etc/updatedb.conf controls what paths are pruned (ignored), like /tmp or /mnt.