Questions tagged [search]

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268 votes
4 answers
518k views

Any way to search for text within nano?

Nano is the editor I use in command prompts. When I open a large file I would like to search for some text (think Ctrl + F). Is there a way to do this?
JD Isaacks's user avatar
  • 5,277
211 votes
8 answers
31k views

Traditional search-as-you-type on newer Nautilus versions

Until now I was using a "traditional" version of Nautilus: that that comes with Ubuntu 10.10. Now I'm using 3.6.3, included with Ubuntu 13.04 (most likely any recent version is equivalent for the ...
deprecated's user avatar
  • 2,149
175 votes
9 answers
476k views

How to search entire hard drive for a file?

Trying to locate a file, how can I search the entire hard drive for a file?
Blankman's user avatar
  • 8,275
173 votes
4 answers
145k views

How can I search within a manpage?

Is there a option to search within manpages?
NES's user avatar
  • 33.2k
121 votes
12 answers
696k views

How to search for all the files starting with the name "ABC" in a directory?

I need to search for files starting with some particular name. There can be multiple files starting with a particular pattern and I want to list all such files present in the directory.
R11G's user avatar
  • 1,543
96 votes
9 answers
287k views

How do I find packages to install via apt-get

After doing a man apt-get and cursory Google search it's not clear how I find new programs to install (from the internet) using apt-get (which is amazingly powerful and simple coming from another ...
r00fus's user avatar
  • 1,115
79 votes
3 answers
230k views

How to search strings inside files like in Windows without search monkey?

I am using Ubuntu on VMWare but I cannot connect to internet because of security restrictions. I was wondering if there was a way to search for strings through the terminal and find which line the ...
user138056's user avatar
60 votes
6 answers
196k views

command to find files by searching only part of their names?

Say there are files with names: batman.c debate.c cricketbat.c What command and how should I use it to list all these files by using the searchtag bat?
srk_cb's user avatar
  • 1,297
59 votes
5 answers
70k views

Grep, ignore warnings

I am trying to find the installation directory of a particular package. I have a certain keyword using which I am trying to find a particular file. During grep, I only want to include cpp or h file ...
Neeraj Gupta's user avatar
57 votes
4 answers
12k views

How do I disable search-as-you-type text in Ubuntu 17.10 and later? [duplicate]

I cannot find enable-interactive-search in gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences enable-interactive-search true. I searched using gsettings list-recursively | grep search and ...
Amir's user avatar
  • 591
51 votes
7 answers
29k views

Search text within multiple pdfs and docs

I got a bunch of notes written by other students, but they are from an old textbook that didn't deal with everything in the same order, so I need to search through the notes for every chapter (each ...
Rabbit's user avatar
  • 794
40 votes
4 answers
196k views

how to find a word in text files from a directory [duplicate]

Suppose that I have a directory with name _file and includes two sub directory like _1 and _2 and on each one I have some text files. I want to search a word like foo in one of these text files. How I ...
Mohammad Reza Rezwani's user avatar
39 votes
5 answers
26k views

How do I search a PDF file from command line?

I'm checking references of a paper and want to find the positions in the body where some paper (in the references list) is referenced. Is there a PDF editor which supports search via bash and extract ...
David's user avatar
  • 393
34 votes
6 answers
48k views

List all recently changed files (recursive)

So, I want to display (via ls for example) all files, which were changed in the last seven days. If I'm in my docroot-folder, it should be able to look "deeper". For example: File Last ...
DasSaffe's user avatar
  • 477
34 votes
3 answers
20k views

How do I get mlocate to only index certain directories?

I'd like to use mlocate on my Ubuntu server, but only to index certain directories (e.g. /home and /data, but not everything under /). However, mlocate's standard configuration works the opposite way; ...
Andrew Ferrier's user avatar
33 votes
5 answers
27k views

Find what packages are installed from a repository

I'm trying to find what packages I have installed from a repository using terminal commands. I found a post somewhere saying I could use aptitude search "?origin (<repository>) ?installed", but ...
Obsidian Jackal's user avatar
33 votes
6 answers
8k views

How to remove `t=canonical` from Firefox browser searches made on DuckDuckGo?

In Ubuntu 14.04, when I do a search in Firefox using either the address bar or the search bar, the system always adds t=canonical to my searches. So the full string becomes: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 3,970
32 votes
3 answers
25k views

Can I search in the terminal backlog in Terminator

I'm using Terminator as my terminal. Is there a built-in way to find/search through the output backlog? I'm not looking for grep and piping a command, or piping into less or vim.
simbabque's user avatar
  • 727
32 votes
6 answers
59k views

Search for duplicate file names within folder hierarchy?

I have a folder called img, this folder has many levels of sub-folders, all of which containing images. I am going to import them into an image server. Normally images (or any files) can have the ...
JD Isaacks's user avatar
  • 5,277
31 votes
2 answers
48k views

How to find all empty files and folders in a specific directory including files which just look empty but are not?

Let's say that in my folder ~/list I have a large amount of folders each with their own sub-folders and sub-sub-folders etc, and there are lots of files almost on each level. However some of these ...
user avatar
30 votes
1 answer
3k views

Explicit pictures show when searching "gedit" in Ubuntu Dash

Recently at work I searched the Unity Dash for gedit and there were explicit pictures in the search result. The picture shows in "Reference" field when I search "gedit" only.. It was very ...
Xiaokun's user avatar
  • 372
28 votes
7 answers
38k views

Enhancing the Nautilus search option

In Nautilus if I press CTRL+F inside a folder I get a search box that helps me search in the current directory and sub directories for specific names and types of files, but what if I want to: Find ...
Luis Alvarado's user avatar
26 votes
10 answers
21k views

Software for text search in files

I am looking for a software that will search text in files from a folder similar to XYplorer. Is there something similar?
S L's user avatar
  • 1,919
25 votes
4 answers
44k views

How can I have a dash-like search under Xfce?

About 1.5 years ago, I tried out Ubuntu 11.04. I remember the dash being a rather helpful tool and I like the equivalent features on both Windows 7 (via the Start-button) and the Mac OS. When I press ...
henry's user avatar
  • 2,045
24 votes
1 answer
3k views

how do I disable recursive search in nautilus 3.6

Recursive search in nautilus 3.6 completely breaks my keyboard navigation. I often navigate network volumes, and typing to get directly to a folder and clicking enter was very quick. Now typing ...
neuron's user avatar
  • 402
23 votes
1 answer
7k views

Type Ahead search using Nautilus on Ubuntu 18.04 [duplicate]

Before upgrading to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, I was using Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS. When I was in the file browser, I was able to access a file just by writing some letters; it just got selected and it was super ...
B. Amine's user avatar
  • 680
23 votes
2 answers
34k views

Does linux filesystem support fast file searching /indexing?

I wonder why aren't there any tool that enable one to find files on his harddisk very rapidly like "search everything" does .Just type a part of the file name and all files containing the keyword ...
hvjkjdtmkgh's user avatar
23 votes
4 answers
3k views

How to make faster first search at Unity-Dash? Way slower than second one

After a reboot, the first search using Unity Dash will be slower (15 sec) than the second search (seems instant), on my system at least. I guess this is because file index is cleared after a reboot ...
Esamo's user avatar
  • 1,522
22 votes
4 answers
82k views

Search for all files with a .sql extension in folders and sub folders

I want to search for all files with the .sql extension in folders and sub-folders (recursive). How can I do this?
Blankman's user avatar
  • 8,275
22 votes
3 answers
10k views

What is the difference between locate/whereis/which

What is the basic difference between locate whereis and which command. The basic difference that I observed is that locate locates all the related file names in the entire filesystem, whereas ...
Chinmaya B's user avatar
  • 6,092
22 votes
2 answers
6k views

Is it possible to customise the search engine buttons in GNOME Shell?

When searching in gnome-shell, there are two buttons towards the bottom of the screen which can be used to search with Wikipedia and Google. Is there any way to customise these? If, say, I wanted to ...
Josh's user avatar
  • 1,291
21 votes
3 answers
10k views

Exclude directory from Unity Search

I am re-asking this question: How to remove a specific folder from the Ubuntu search? because I do not believe it was a duplicate, or was answered in that post. This has nothing to do with Zeitgeist ...
Hearth's user avatar
  • 343
21 votes
2 answers
15k views

Is there any software that will do face recognition in photos?

I would like to automate the process of tagging my photos with subjects' names. Is there any software for Ubuntu that can perform face recognition on a local photo collection?
ændrük's user avatar
  • 76.7k
20 votes
3 answers
3k views

How to make "Search on Google" available in selected text's context menu in gnome-terminal?

I want to have an option like Search on Google available in selected text's context menu in gnome-terminal. Something similar to the option which is available in selected text's context menu in google ...
Radu Rădeanu's user avatar
20 votes
4 answers
28k views

Any search tool for LXDE menu?

I just installed lxde to boot into when laptop is using battery, but I really miss at least a simple search feature, I am used to Unity so I find myself losing too much time navigating on the menus, ...
Neptunno's user avatar
  • 2,214
20 votes
3 answers
46k views

How to search for files and file contents with a GUI?

When I use the search function in Nautilus it only returns files with matching file names. It doesn't even support wildcards. For example, "*.txt" doesn't return anything. I would expect it to return ...
waspinator's user avatar
  • 4,722
19 votes
2 answers
22k views

Searching previous command history with PageUp in 14.04

I got this working before (I believe it was on a 15.10, I recently downgraded to the LTS 14.04). According to this post the following should work ~ $ cat ~/.inputrc "\e[A":history-search-backward "\...
Juicy's user avatar
  • 875
18 votes
8 answers
19k views

Is there a equivalent application to Everything search engine (Windows) on Ubuntu?

IMO, Everything search engine is the best desktop search software on Windows and I wonder if there is an equivalent utility on Ubuntu ?
JatSing's user avatar
  • 327
17 votes
1 answer
2k views

Built-in calculator to GNOME search window

Using Ubuntu 18.04. On prior versions of Ubuntu GNOME, I could type basic expressions into the gnome search bar and get the answer. Ever since I upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 however, I cannot; it shows ...
user16565's user avatar
  • 173
16 votes
2 answers
26k views

grep list each file once

I'm looking some text in files , but three are a lot of files and searched text appears several times in one file, how can I receive a list of files that contains searched text with every file listed ...
Guest1624's user avatar
  • 163
16 votes
3 answers
30k views

Find a file with exact name without using wildcard

I have been using Ubuntu for abuot 2 weeks and and still frustrated with simple file operations. I want to find a file called 9.jpg. Every internal command and 3rd party program I have tried, gives ...
Leo in NJ's user avatar
  • 191
16 votes
2 answers
5k views

Gedit: Search next match ... usability

Searching the next match with gedit makes me crazy. I press Ctrl+F The search input box opens I enter foo There is a match for foo. Nice Up to now everything is sane I want to search the next match (...
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,737
15 votes
1 answer
2k views

What exactly does Zeitgeist index?

I am not clear on this. Does Zeitgeist index the contents of my document so searches are more relevant? Or is Zeitgeist only searching the name/extension of my documents?
Dustin's user avatar
  • 2,103
15 votes
1 answer
20k views

How to set nemo as default instead of nautilus? [duplicate]

I have recently installed nemo with: sudo apt-get install nemo But I am finding that other applications still are using nautilus to open folders like for instance the Unity search still opens its ...
user avatar
15 votes
4 answers
11k views

How can I tag files and search them later based on the tag?

Running Ubuntu Gnome. I have a lot of PDF and other documents and I will like to tag them. And search them later based on these tags. Even if I move the files to different folders (so, the tags stick ...
deshmukh's user avatar
  • 4,061
14 votes
3 answers
23k views

Where is search on Ubuntu Software Center?

It seems to have disappeared. The menu Edit/Search doesn't work, either. I've filed a launchpad bug-report.
keepitsimpleengineer's user avatar
14 votes
4 answers
2k views

Nautilus doesn't have type-ahead search in Ubuntu 17.10 [duplicate]

I've just upgraded to Ubuntu 17.10 and have noticed that Nautilus (I'm aware they dropped it years ago, I meant that Ubuntu patched it back in before) dropped type-ahead. It now instead opens the ...
Alexey B.'s user avatar
  • 141
14 votes
3 answers
8k views

How can I make Files search recursively within a network share?

When I use Files to search within a network share, it says: Remote location - only searching the current folder How can I make it search all folders like it normally does? I understand that ...
ændrük's user avatar
  • 76.7k
14 votes
3 answers
476 views

Find projects that use a particular programming language in Launchpad?

On Launchpad.net, most projects list the programming language(s) their software uses: It would be useful if there was a way to get a list of all the projects that use "X" programming language, in my ...
Isaiah's user avatar
  • 59.3k
14 votes
2 answers
4k views

Can the Unity dash search for content within files?

Will Unity Search have support for content search? I know tracker can index your files and you can then search for them, but is it possible to get this with "in" unity? use case: I click the super ...
nnyegaard's user avatar
  • 263

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