17.16 Searching by Owner and Group

Often you need to look for a file belonging to a certain user or group. This is done with the -user and -group search operators. You often need to combine this with a search for particular permissions. To find all files that are set user ID (1.23) to root, use:

% find . -user root -perm -4000 -print

To find all files that are set group ID (1.23) to staff, use:

% find . -group staff -perm -2000 -print

Instead of using a name or group from /etc/passwd (36.3) or /etc/group (22.13), you can use the UID or GID number (38.3):

% find . -user 0 -perm -4000 -print
% find . -group 10 -perm -2000 -print

Often, when a user leaves a site, his account is deleted, but his files are still on the computer. Some versions of find have -nouser or -nogroup operators to find files with an unknown user or group ID.