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List files by modification date with the ls command on Linux.

This one-liner will list all files in a directory by modification time, newest first.

jason@eyjafjallajkull:~/Pictures$ ls -thul

Use it this way to list the top 20 files listed.

jason@eyjafjallajkull:/var/log$ ls -thul | head -n 20
total 6.9M
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root              utmp 9.0K Jul  9 11:30 wtmp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root  85K Jul  9 11:26 Xorg.0.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root    0 Jul  9 11:26 netserver.debug_1797
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root  14K Jul  9 11:26 boot.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root  32K Jul  8 11:14 faillog
-rw-r----- 1 syslog            adm   11K Jul  8 11:10 auth.log
drwxr-xr-x 2 root              root 4.0K Jul  8 11:09 apt
-rw-r----- 1 syslog            adm  105K Jul  8 10:55 kern.log
-rw-r----- 1 syslog            adm  392K Jul  8 10:55 syslog
drwxr-xr-x 2 root              root  12K Jul  8 10:55 upstart
drwxr-x--- 2 mysql             adm  4.0K Jul  8 10:55 mysql
drwxr-xr-x 2 root              root 4.0K Jul  8 10:55 cups
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root  85K Jul  8 10:43 Xorg.0.log.old
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root    0 Jul  8 10:43 netserver.debug_1704
-rw------- 1 root              utmp    0 Jul  2 01:59 btmp
-rw-r----- 1 syslog            adm  214K Jul  2 01:59 syslog.1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root    0 Jul  2 01:59 alternatives.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root  33K Jul  2 01:59 dpkg.log
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root              utmp 112K Jul  2 01:52 wtmp.1

Use ls this way to list by file size.

jason@eyjafjallajkull:/var/log$ ls -S -luh | head -n 20
total 6.4M
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root 673K Sep 26  2014 vnetlib
-rw-r----- 1 syslog            adm  544K Jun 29 08:41 kern.log.1
-rw-r----- 1 root              root 538K Apr 30 19:24 lynis.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root 529K Sep 26  2014 vmware-installer
-rw-r----- 1 syslog            adm  397K Jul  8 10:55 syslog.1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root 290K Apr 12 21:43 udev
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root              utmp 286K Jun 16 23:42 lastlog
-rw-r----- 1 syslog            adm  260K Jun 18 18:35 syslog.7.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root 252K Jun 16 23:02 dpkg.log.1
-rw-r----- 1 root              root 200K Apr 30 18:56 lynis-report.dat
-rw-r----- 1 syslog            adm  190K Jun  9 08:52 kern.log.3.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root 183K Dec 30  2014 dpkg.log.7.gz
-rw-r----- 1 syslog            adm  148K Jun  1 12:07 kern.log.4.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root 135K Jul 23  2014 dpkg.log.10.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root              utmp 112K Jul  2 01:52 wtmp.1
-rw-r----- 1 syslog            adm  109K Jun 26 01:55 syslog.5.gz
-rw-r----- 1 syslog            adm  105K Jul  8 10:55 kern.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root  94K Mar 22 11:05 dpkg.log.4.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root              root  85K Jul  8 10:43 Xorg.0.log.old

List numeric user and group uids this way.

ubuntu ~/Documents $ ls -n
total 20276
-rwxrwxr-x 1 1000 1000     8510 May  3 23:24 a.out
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1000 1000     1530 Mar 20 03:11 hashes.out
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1000 1000     2496 Jun 18 03:33 hole.o
drwxrwxr-x 6 1000 1000     4096 Mar 20 02:46 impacket-read-only
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1000 1000     1118 May  3 23:24 my.c
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1000 1000      995 Mar 18 03:19 nikto-pinterest-log.log
drwxrwxr-x 3 1000 1000     4096 Mar 20 02:37 python
-rwxrwxr-x 1 1000 1000     7741 Mar 20 02:12 recipe-502268-1.py
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1000 1000    65536 Mar 20 03:02 sam.save
-rwxrwxr-x 1 1000 1000    64259 Mar 20 02:44 secretsdump.py
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1000 1000    32768 Mar 20 03:03 security.save
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1000 1000 20545536 Mar 20 03:03 system.save
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1000 1000     7754 Jun 18 03:31 virii.S

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