The Computer Oracle

What's the equivalent of Linux's updatedb command for the Mac?

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Chapters
00:00 Question
00:29 Accepted answer (Score 384)
00:48 Answer 2 (Score 101)
01:07 Answer 3 (Score 21)
01:57 Answer 4 (Score 4)
02:18 Thank you

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Full question
https://superuser.com/questions/109590/w...

Accepted answer links:
[locate.updatedb man page]: http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/D...

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Content licensed under CC BY-SA
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Tags
#linux #macos #mac #locate

#avk47



ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 394


It's locate.updatedb on Mac.

sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb

For more information see the locate.updatedb man page.




ANSWER 2

Score 108


You can do sudo ln -s /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb /usr/local/bin/updatedb to make the updatedb command available.




ANSWER 3

Score 25


Personally, I just installed findutils (use MacPorts or Homebrew).

Then you have GNU locate and updatedb.

updatedb won't work without sudo.

Personally I prefer to have a per user locatedb though; if you sudo other users will know the names/locations of all your files.

I have a cron job to run:

updatedb --localpaths='/Users/grogs' --output='/Users/grogs/tmp/locatedb'

And in my .zshrc .bashrc/.bashprofile:

export LOCATE_PATH="~/tmp/locatedb"




ANSWER 4

Score 5


If you run locate without first updating the database, you have a chance to see the OS's recommended way by its output.

WARNING: The locate database (/var/db/locate.database) does not exist.
To create the database, run the following command:
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist
Please be aware that the database can take some time to generate; once
the database has been created, this message will no longer appear.