List files with certain extensions with ls and grep

Question

I just want to get the files from the current dir and only output .mp4 .mp3 .exe files nothing else. So I thought I could just do this:

ls | grep \.mp4$ | grep \.mp3$ | grep \.exe$

But no, as the first grep will output just mp4's therefor the other 2 grep's won't be used.

Any ideas? PS, Running this script on Slow Leopard.

This really is the wrong approach -- instead of using grep, use `shopt -s nullglob` and then just refer to `*.exe *.mp3 *.mp4`. See http://mywiki.wooledge.org/ParsingLs — Charles Duffy, Sep 19 '09 at 06:15
I can't figure out whether or not "Slow Leopard" was a typo... — Wowfunhappy, May 19 '18 at 01:24
@Wowfunhappy hahaha, definitely was a typo, I recall thinking Snow Leopard was quite fast. — Mint, May 20 '18 at 04:50

score 423 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 19 '09 at 06:45

423

Why not:

ls *.{mp3,exe,mp4}

I'm not sure where I learned it - but I've been using this.

answered Sep 19 '09 at 06:45

meder omuraliev

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This isn't working for me because the extension I am using is for a directory, so the ls is listing the contents of the directory. – Richard Venable Aug 27 '13 at 02:23
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@RichardVenable add the -d switch to prevent that directories are recursed. – Carlos Eugenio Thompson Pinzón Oct 05 '13 at 16:50
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I like this solution but it seems to fail if you are missing any one of the filetypes. For example, you have mp3 but no .exe (Mac OSX, zsh) – JHo Dec 21 '13 at 13:42
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I redirected stderr to /dev/null to avoid `ls: *.exe: No such file or directory` eg: `ls *.{zip,tar.gz,tar} 2>/dev/null` – Isaac Sep 06 '17 at 00:42
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When I run ls foo*.{tar.gz,zip} directly in a shell it works, but when put this inside a shell script latest=$(ls -I '*.done' -tr ${pkgprefix}*.{tar.gz,zip} | tail -1) I got an error message: ls: cannot access 'bamtools*.{tar.gz,zip}': No such file or directory, any smarter guy can refined the answer. – Kemin Zhou Feb 09 '18 at 19:54

mob · Answer 2 · 2017-10-27T15:30:26.207

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egrep -- extended grep -- will help here

ls | egrep '\.mp4$|\.mp3$|\.exe$'

should do the job.

edited Oct 27 '17 at 15:30

answered Sep 19 '09 at 03:25

mob

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Thats it! Thanks Just realized I should have it case insensitive, so I'm using: ls | egrep -i '\.mp4$|\.mp3$|\.exe$ Incase anyone else needs help with that one day. Im always surprised by the speed I get my answer on here. – Mint Sep 19 '09 at 03:36
I can't see how this would work. ls without any options produces output in columns. Anchoring to the end of the line will not match properly. – camh Sep 19 '09 at 06:44
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@camh: `ls` to a terminal (or with `-C` option) produces multi-column output. `ls` to a pipe (or with `-1`) has single column output. (Compare output of `ls` with `ls | cat`). – mob Sep 19 '09 at 07:07
There's a missing apostrophe at the end. Other than that it seems to work. – Björn Oct 27 '17 at 14:45

Dennis Williamson · Answer 3 · 2017-02-28T00:26:27.263

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Use regular expressions with find:

find . -iregex '.*\.\(mp3\|mp4\|exe\)' -printf '%f\n'

If you're piping the filenames:

find . -iregex '.*\.\(mp3\|mp4\|exe\)' -printf '%f\0' | xargs -0 dosomething

This protects filenames that contain spaces or newlines.

OS X find only supports alternation when the -E (enhanced) option is used.

find -E . -regex '.*\.(mp3|mp4|exe)'

edited Feb 28 '17 at 00:26

answered Sep 19 '09 at 07:41

Dennis Williamson

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On Mac OS X: `find . -iregex '.*$mp3\|mp4\|exe$'` – andilabs Nov 08 '13 at 11:07
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andi, that didn't work for me on mac os. But this did: find -E . -regex '.*(mp3|mp4|exe)' – Jo Jo Aug 28 '14 at 17:42
This solution will load files like: `mysupermp3.jpg` consider adding the `$` at the end of the regex and the `\\.` before the extensions – Panthro Feb 22 '17 at 12:45
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@Panthro: actually, it won't. Find appears to use implied anchors. The dot is a good idea (only one backslash is needed). – Dennis Williamson Feb 28 '17 at 00:24

score 19 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 19 '09 at 06:16

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the easiest way is to just use ls

ls *.mp4 *.mp3 *.exe

edited Sep 19 '09 at 06:16

Charles Duffy

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answered Sep 19 '09 at 03:26

Joshua K

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Thanks, but I already tried that and I didn't like the errors you get when there is no file. Thou I could of fixed that by doing: ls *.mp4 *.mp3 *.exe 2> /dev/null Only thought of that now thou :P – Mint Sep 19 '09 at 03:40
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I am surprised that `ls` doesn't have some sort of silent option. – MitMaro Sep 19 '09 at 03:47
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In bash, you can do "set -o nullglob", and you wont get the errors. – camh Sep 19 '09 at 04:10
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My mistake - that should be "shopt -s nullglob" not the set -o command – camh Sep 19 '09 at 05:54
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Or just use "echo": echo *.mp4 *.mp3 *.exe – Adrian Pronk Sep 19 '09 at 06:02

camh · Answer 5 · 2009-09-19T05:55:22.690

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No need for grep. Shell wildcards will do the trick.

ls *.mp4 *.mp3 *.exe

If you have run

shopt -s nullglob

then unmatched globs will be removed altogether and not be left on the command line unexpanded.

If you want case-insensitive globbing (so *.mp3 will match foo.MP3):

shopt -s nocaseglob

edited Sep 19 '09 at 05:55

answered Sep 19 '09 at 03:27

camh

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Same comment as I gave to Good Time Tribe. – Mint Sep 19 '09 at 03:54
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I am trying to use this with the `-R` option to list matching files in subdirectories but the option doesn't seem to have any effect and I still only get the current directory's results. – Chris Feb 13 '19 at 09:51

score 10 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 19 '09 at 05:37

10

Just in case: why don't you use find?

find -iname '*.mp3' -o -iname '*.exe' -o -iname '*.mp4'

answered Sep 19 '09 at 05:37

P Shved

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I found this worked instead - `find . -name '*.mkv' -o -name '*.flv'` (adding as many -o clauses as required). I needed the `.` to indicate the directory and the flag `-name` not `-iname` - I'm on macOS 10.13. – Chris Feb 13 '19 at 09:55

james2doyle · Answer 7 · 2017-01-04T20:05:34.453

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For OSX users:

If you use ls *.{mp3,exe,mp4}, it will throw an error if one of those extensions has no results.

Using ls *.(mp3|exe|mp4) will return all files matching those extensions, even if one of the extensions had 0 results.

edited Jan 04 '17 at 20:05

answered Mar 05 '15 at 20:26

james2doyle

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I got a syntax error using your example??? 'bash: syntax error near unexpected token `(' – nagordon May 27 '15 at 18:17
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I guess you mean `ls *.@(mp3|exe|mp4)`. You need `shopt -s extglob` for this to work. By the way, `ls` is useless too, you could just do `printf '%s\n' *.@(mp3|exe|mp4)`. – gniourf_gniourf Jan 04 '17 at 20:15
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I get the syntax unexpected token message on macOS 10.13 – Chris Feb 13 '19 at 09:39
what if my folder has `.h` & `.hpp` files & I only want to list `.h` – nightcrawler Nov 17 '22 at 10:35

score 5 · Answer 8 · edited Dec 29 '13 at 19:34

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In case you are still looking for an alternate solution:

ls | grep -i -e '\\.tcl$' -e '\\.exe$' -e '\\.mp4$'

Feel free to add more -e flags if needed.

edited Dec 29 '13 at 19:34

Zombo

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answered Sep 19 '09 at 06:41

Hai Vu

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score 3 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 19 '09 at 03:26

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ls | grep "\.mp4$
\.mp3$
\.exe$"

answered Sep 19 '09 at 03:26

Jeff Mc

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Thanks, but a bit inconvenient using up several lines. – Mint Sep 19 '09 at 03:38
This + `mdfind` yields the best / fastest searches EVER! `mdfind -name querystring | grep "\.h$"` finds all headers with quesrystring in the file title. pronto. – Alex Gray Nov 14 '12 at 18:32

score 0 · Answer 10 · edited Dec 24 '13 at 05:54

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ls -R | findstr ".mp3"

ls -R => lists subdirectories recursively

edited Dec 24 '13 at 05:54

Mike Causer

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answered Dec 24 '13 at 05:36

vardamanpk

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score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 10 '20 at 03:04

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it is easy try to use this command :

ls | grep \.txt$ && ls | grep \.exe

answered Nov 10 '20 at 03:04

Mohamed Hassou

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score -1 · Answer 12 · answered Feb 12 '18 at 10:27

-1

Here is one example that worked for me.

find <mainfolder path> -name '*myfiles.java' | xargs -n 1 basename

answered Feb 12 '18 at 10:27

Jyoti Prakash

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List files with certain extensions with ls and grep

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