Find Empty Files and Directories

A useful test when performing a find operation is to locate empty files. The following example searches for all empty files and directories on the system with the -empty operator that is available on some UNIX variants, including Linux. This is only a partial output because it's so long:

 #  find / -empty -print  /lost+found /var/adm/LST/analyse /var/spool/lpd /var/spool/news /var/spool/uucp /var/spool/mqueue /var/spool/atjobs/.SEQ /var/spool/atspool /var/spool/cron /var/spool/fax/outgoing/locks /var/spool/fax/incoming /var/spool/voice/incoming /var/spool/voice/messages /var/spool/rwho /var/spool/uucppublic /var/lib/LST/log /var/lib/LST/analyse /var/lib/LST/disks /var/lib/LST/catalog /var/lib/LST/conflicts /var/lib/LST/saved /var/lib/LST/replaced /var/lib/LST/deleted /var/lib/games /var/local /var/lock/subsys/inet /var/lock/subsys/ipx /var/lock/subsys/syslog /var/lock/subsys/amd /var/lock/subsys/cron /var/lock/subsys/atd /var/lock/subsys/mta /var/lock/subsys/rstatd /var/lock/subsys/httpd /var/log/httpd/apache/access_log /var/log/xferlog /var/log/uucp /var/log/secure /var/log/spooler /var/named /var/nis /var/preserve /var/run/xlaunch /var/tmp  .   .   .  /proc/net/snmp /proc/net/raw /proc/net/igmp /proc/net/arp /proc/net/unix /proc/cpuinfo /proc/pci /proc/version /proc/kmsg /proc/meminfo /proc/uptime /proc/loadavg /proc/mdstat /etc/modules/options /etc/motd /etc/exports /etc/ppp/options /tmp/LST /tmp/.XF86Setup235/f51cb27-315ae55/ServerOut-2 /tmp/.XF86Setup246/13617839-11c71c71/ServerOut-2 /tmp/.XF86Setup262/1f2cc0a9-aea314d/ServerOut-2 /tmp/.XF86Setup288/17963ff7-21ca966f/ServerOut-2 /tmp/fsslog /mnt/floppy /mnt/cdrom /usr/doc/html/woven/LDP/install-guide-2.2.2.html/images.idx /usr/lib/games /usr/lib/groff/tmac/mm/locale /usr/lib/groff/tmac/mm/se_locale /usr/lib/kbd/keytables/patch_tables.orig /usr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.003/auto/GDBM_File/GDBM_File.bs /usr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.003/auto/DB_File/DB_File.bs /usr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.003/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs /usr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.003/auto/FileHandle/FileHandle.bs /usr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.003/auto/NDBM_File/NDBM_File.bs /usr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.003/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs /usr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.003/auto/SDBM_File/SDBM_File.bs /usr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.003/auto/Safe/Safe.bs /usr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.003/auto/Socket/Socket.bs /usr/lib/perl5/i386-linux/5.003/auto/Text/ParseWords /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/i386-linux /usr/lib/linuxdoc-sgml/null.sty /usr/etc /usr/include/g++ /usr/include/netax25 /usr/include/netipx /usr/include/readline /usr/local/bin /usr/local/doc /usr/local/etc /usr/local/games /usr/local/info /usr/local/lib /usr/local/man/man1 /usr/local/man/man2 /usr/local/man/man3 /usr/local/man/man4 /usr/local/man/man5 /usr/local/man/man6 /usr/local/man/man7 /usr/local/man/man8 /usr/local/man/man9 /usr/local/man/mann /usr/local/sbin /usr/local/src /usr/man/man9 /usr/man/mann /usr/src/linux-2.0.29/include/linux/modules /usr/src/linux-2.0.29/modules /usr/src/redhat/BUILD /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386 /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES /usr/src/redhat/SPECS /usr/src/redhat/SRPMS /usr/X11R6/doc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/x11perfcomp /usr/visix/fss/En_US.8859 /usr/visix/vls/En_US.8859 /usr/openwin/share/src/xview /auto /initrd /home/httpd/icons /home/ftp/lib /home/ftp/pub /opt/bin /opt/man /root/lg/lg3_hosts /amd/nycald1/auto/.vTRASH # #  ll /auto  total 0 

All the files and directories listed as a result of this find operation are empty. The long listing of /auto shown as part of the example, confirms this fact. Keep in mind that -empty is not available on all UNIX variants.