This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org: --- Title : Bash Bits: Find all files containing specific text (and remove them) Author : Remy van Elst Date : 07-05-2019 URL : https://raymii.org/s/snippets/Bash_Bits_Find_all_files_containing_specific_text.html Format : Markdown/HTML --- Bash Bits are small examples and tips for Bash Scripts. This bash bit shows you how to find all files containing specific text, and how to remove them.

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[All Bash Bits can be found using this link][2] ### Finding all files with specific text in them For [text news][3] I convert news articles to plain text with readability. Recently one of the sites I convert changed their HTML, causing the parsing to fail. I fixed that in the parser, but had over 200 failed parsed articles. I wanted to remove them all. They all contain the following string: Wij willen graag weten in welke omgeving u woont Navigate to the folder where you want to search (recursivly): cd /var/gopher Search for all `.txt` files which have the string in them. `grep -l` will only write the filename of the file that contains the string. find -iname "*.txt" | xargs grep -l "Wij willen graag weten in welke omgeving" This will give you a list of files: ./Dutch/www.rtvdrenthe.nl/20190428T0924_Inbraak_bij_super_Barger_Oosterveld.txt ./Dutch/www.rtvdrenthe.nl/20190428T1036_Hoofdprijs_Staatsloterij_valt_in_Borger_Odoorn.txt ./Dutch/www.rtvdrenthe.nl/20190501T1304_50Plus_en_Sterk_Lokaal_samen_verder_in_de_Staten.txt ./Dutch/www.rtvdrenthe.nl/20190504T1657_Live__Dodenherdenking_Westerbork__afgesloten_.txt ./Dutch/www.rtvdrenthe.nl/20190503T0557_Drankrijder_A28_is_rijbewijs_kwijt.txt Check them by hand, and if you're sure you want to remove them, use the following command: find -iname "*.txt" | xargs grep -l "Wij willen graag weten in welke omgeving" | awk '{print "rm "$1}' | bash [1]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212 [2]: https://raymii.org/s/tags/bash-bits.html [3]: https://txtn.ws --- License: All the text on this website is free as in freedom unless stated otherwise. This means you can use it in any way you want, you can copy it, change it the way you like and republish it, as long as you release the (modified) content under the same license to give others the same freedoms you've got and place my name and a link to this site with the article as source. This site uses Google Analytics for statistics and Google Adwords for advertisements. You are tracked and Google knows everything about you. Use an adblocker like ublock-origin if you don't want it. All the code on this website is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 license unless already licensed under a license which does not allows this form of licensing or if another license is stated on that page / in that software: This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see . Just to be clear, the information on this website is for meant for educational purposes and you use it at your own risk. I do not take responsibility if you screw something up. Use common sense, do not 'rm -rf /' as root for example. If you have any questions then do not hesitate to contact me. See https://raymii.org/s/static/About.html for details.