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I have a hard drive filled with files, and I need to find a specific file without knowing its name. All I know is that the file contains a list of email addresses. Is there any way I can locate it?

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  • GUI or cli? both are in the dupes above :)
    – Jacob Vlijm
    Jul 30, 2015 at 14:26

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You can try using grep -r:

Here is an example where I grepped for the text "listen_address" in any file from my home dir:

aploetz@dockingBay94:~$ grep -r listen_address *
Documents/stackOverFlowAnswer_connectToCassandra.txt~:If you are connecting to Cassandra from your localhost only (a sandbox machine), then you can set the `listen_address` in your cassandra.yaml:
Documents/stackOverFlowAnswer_connectToCassandra.txt~:    listen_address: localhost
Documents/stackOverFlowAnswer_connectToCassandra.txt:If you are connecting to Cassandra from your localhost only (a sandbox machine), then you can set the `listen_address` in your cassandra.yaml:
Documents/stackOverFlowAnswer_connectToCassandra.txt:    listen_address: localhost
Documents/stackOverFlowAnswer_connectToCassandra.txt:    listen_address: dockingBay94
Ubuntu One/cassandraClass/cassandra.yaml:listen_address: $(HOSTNAME)
Ubuntu One/cassandraClass/cassandra.yaml:# Leaving this blank will set it to the same value as listen_address
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  • 2
    You don't need the asterix :)
    – A.B.
    Jul 30, 2015 at 14:24
  • Adding the -l option means you'll just get the filename, without listing the file contents.
    – Arronical
    Jul 30, 2015 at 14:25
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Via find and grep

I don't use grep -r because in POSIX systems, you don't find -r parameter for grep.

find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep 'your_email_address' {} \;

Or 

find . -type f -exec grep -l -- 'your_email_address' +

There are many possibilities.

The command finds all files in the current folder and subfolders and passes the result to grep. grep finds the files with your_email_address.

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    Why not just grep -r 'your_email_address'?
    – saiarcot895
    Jul 30, 2015 at 14:19
  • Hmm, I'm a friend of find =)
    – A.B.
    Jul 30, 2015 at 14:20
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    In its present state, this will not give the name of the file that contains the match. It will only give the match.
    – saiarcot895
    Jul 30, 2015 at 14:21
  • Sorry, corrected
    – A.B.
    Jul 30, 2015 at 14:22
  • @saiarcot895 And in POSIX systems, you don't find -r parameter for grep.
    – A.B.
    Jul 30, 2015 at 14:26

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