What command should I use to find the file with the maximum size in a certain folder

Question

What command should I use to find the file with the maximum size in a certain folder containing sub-directories which are several level deep. (in windows / linux)

Answer 1

You can use the following command under Linux:

find /path/to/folder -printf "%p:%k\n" | sort -k 2 -rn -t : | head -n 1 | cut -f 1 -d :

If you want to get size also (in kilobytes), you can remove the last cut.

Answer 2

find /dirname -type f -ls | sort -nr -k 7,7 | head -n 1

will list all files under dirname and sort them in reverse order (largest first) with a numerical sort for the 7th field.

BTW: This is on Linux/Unix.