Finding most recently changed files in Unix

How do I find the most recently changed files in a set of subdirectories on Unix or Linux?

Answer 1: This will show the most recent 10 files in current directory and below.

It supports filenames with spaces. And can be slow with lots of files http://stackoverflow.com/a/7448828

sudo find . -type f -exec stat --format '%Y :%y %n' "{}" \; | sort -nr | cut -d: -f2- | head

2015-08-03 13:59:49.000000000 -0700 files/CV_Smith_1July2015.pdf2014-12-05 09:46:33.000000000 -0800 files/CV_Smith_1Dec2014.pdf2013-03-04 10:23:16.000000000 -0800 files/Thumbs.db2013-03-04 10:16:57.000000000 -0800 files/CV_Smith_March2013.pdf2013-01-07 11:44:11.000000000 -0800 files/CV_Smith_5Jan2013.pdf



Answer 2: This will show all files modified in last day, in current directory and below

find . -mtime -1 -ls

This version will just print the filenames, without the file sizes or times.

find . -mtime -1 -print

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