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I am using the locate command on Linux. My current usage of it searches through the entire filesystem. I only want it to search within a specific directory. How can I do this?

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  • TLDR: Here is a terminal alias to make locate search within a specified directory: alias my_locate="updatedb -U /path/to/yourdir -o /path/to/your_dir_locate.db; locate -d /path/to/dir_locate.db " Once the alias is effective, on the terminal type my_locate *foo* and you're off to the races. You can concatenate database updates and locate search by using the colon character to concat databases. rtfm: linux.die.net/man/8/updatedb
    – Eric Leschinski
    Jul 19, 2018 at 15:10

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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Another approach would be to use the pattern matching in locate:

locate '/some/directory/*filename*'

Compare the output of the commands below:

$ locate tmpfile
/usr/lib64/perl5/auto/POSIX/tmpfile.al
/usr/share/man/fr/man3/tmpfile.3.gz
/usr/share/man/ja/man3/tmpfile.3.gz
/usr/share/man/man3/tmpfile.3.gz
/usr/share/man/man3p/tmpfile.3p.gz
$
$ locate '/usr/lib64/*tmpfile*'
/usr/lib64/perl5/auto/POSIX/tmpfile.al
$

locate /usr/lib*tmpfile* gives the same result.

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  • 3
    +1 This is the correct answer. Note that if you include the wildcard, the boundaries become fixed. That is in the above example, $ locate '/usr/lib64/*tmpfile' will return no results.
    – xofer
    Sep 21, 2011 at 4:36
  • If you want more control than simple wildcards can offer, you can always pipe the results of locate through grep.
    – Ladadadada
    Oct 20, 2014 at 16:02
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Create slocate database for your specific directory with:

updatedb -U /path/to/directory

and search with:

locate <search_string>

UPDATE

This works fine on my Gentoo system but CentOS doesn't include -U option. So, you can try below instead:

Build the database with:

# updatedb -U /path/to/dir -o dir_locate.db

and search:

# locate -d dir_locate.db <search_string>
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  • 3
    "locate -U" throws an invalid option error... Guessing you meant "updatedb -U"? Also good to note this requires an mlocate.db rebuild (updatedb) if you ever want to search another directory.
    – gharper
    Sep 21, 2011 at 2:59
  • Oh, on my Gentoo it works fine but CentOS doesn't include this option.
    – quanta
    Sep 21, 2011 at 3:21
  • Down vote? Could you please leave a comment?
    – quanta
    Sep 21, 2011 at 4:44
  • If you have error like: updatedb: can not change group of file 'db.db.kHhzFz' to 'mlocate': Operation not permitted, check how to use updatedb command as an ordinary user on linux.
    – kenorb
    Oct 18, 2014 at 17:38
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The simplest answer I can think of is

locate search_term | grep "/specified/directory"

The better solution might be to use "find" and its path options...

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The easiest way is as in the following example:

updatedb -o ~/tmp.db -l0 -U $PWD
locate   -d ~/tmp.db "foo"

Change $PWD into your specific directory.

The example above will create your local database only for the specific directory.

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