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

Question

If I want to use the locate command on a Linux machine, I usually run sudo updatedb first to update the database. I can run the locate command on OS X 10.5 but I can't find updatedb. What's the corresponding updatedb for the mac?

When first running locate on an OS X box it tells you to run sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist. — viam0Zah, Feb 17 '10 at 15:24
Depending on what you need to use locate for, you might find it more convenient to use the command line interface to Spotlight, mdfind, since the Spotlight database is nearly always up-to-date, and offers a lot more functionality than locate. man mdfind — Paul R, Feb 17 '10 at 16:09
Well upatedb and locate are nice things but they require to run updatedb regularly (either updatedb runs regularly and this slows down your system at inconvenient times, or locate shows references to files which are not there anymore). So I think that instead of setting up locate/updatedb it would perhaps be better to get familiar with (the far more powerful) find. — amo-ej1, Feb 16 '10 at 16:43
While find is useful for lots of things, it does need to go through the filesystem each time. If you can narrow down the places where you are looking, that's fine. The advantage of locate is that keeps its own database, and so doesn't need to search each time. This is especially important with large and/or remote filesystems. I think that each has its place. — KeithB, Feb 16 '10 at 17:00
The answer to this question is found in man locate :) The answer has been in man locate since at least August 17, 2006. — Seamus, Jun 26 '22 at 19:06

score 388 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 16 '10 at 15:27

388

It's locate.updatedb on Mac.

sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb

For more information see the locate.updatedb man page.

answered Feb 16 '10 at 15:27

10

That man page also claims: It is typically run once a week by the /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist job. (And man locate tells one about that script: /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb Script to update the locate database) – Arjan Feb 16 '10 at 15:29
5

@Arjan : It should be run once a week, but the default it's disabled and the time when it should be done is 3am on Sundays (or something similar), which isn't really useful :) – Studer Feb 16 '10 at 15:36
On linux I usually run sudo ionice -c3 updatedb which tells updatedb to share the i/o controller nicely (io nice) but I don't think this command is available on mac. I also miss having the -r regular expression flag which can be used with the GNU locate, although I'm not sure I want to use homebrew and install the GNU locate mentioned by @Grogs – cwd Jun 16 '12 at 12:41
3

Example macosx alternative to "locate (-r)" and "updatedb" that uses spotlight ("-i" optional of course): mdfind -name "mp4" | egrep -i "^/Users.Downloads/.Stuff" – michael Jan 30 '13 at 19:35
1

Also, if you don't find files which you expect to, note this relevant caveat from the the BUGS section of the manpage:
The locate database is typically built by user ''nobody'' and the locate.updatedb(8) utility skips directories which are not readable for user ''nobody'', group ''nobody'', or world. For example, if your HOME directory is not world-readable, none of your files are in the database
– Ashutosh Jindal Dec 09 '15 at 13:18
f you get shell-init: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: Permission denied cd to your home directory, i.e. cd ~ – Michael Durrant Aug 29 '16 at 12:15
On MacOS Sierra if you get the permission denied error try going to root cd / and then executing the sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb. – yossile Jun 26 '17 at 11:20
@michael thank you for pointing out that mdfind is an alternative to using locate on Mac OS. – Noah Sussman Aug 22 '17 at 19:19
NOTE: patiently wait for the command to finish. There's no output when running the command, making it feel like it's not working, but it is. Just wait. – skplunkerin Jan 21 '20 at 20:19

score 106 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 12 '13 at 16:33

106

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

edited Apr 12 '13 at 16:33

Community

1

answered Oct 18 '12 at 22:29

Igor Vigasin

1,061

Heh, I just posted this as a comment.. Then saw you said this. I think this is a nice little mod to make. :) – James T Snell Jul 02 '15 at 16:51
8

or alias it in your .bash_profile – Jim Johnson Aug 09 '16 at 17:26

score 24 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 04 '11 at 02:27

24

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"

answered Dec 04 '11 at 02:27

Grogs

411

3

Brew-installing findutils on OS X Mavericks gave me a gupdatedb command, not an updatedb one. Unfortunately this command gave me an error described here (where your SO answer is referenced). Ultimately I've aliased updatedb to LC_ALL=’C’ sudo updatedb as a workaround, but I don't know if this is a long-term solution. – David Rivers Dec 13 '13 at 19:18
3

Add /opt/local/libexec/gnubin at the start of your path, if you want the coreutils and findutils installed by macports to be available with their original names (and not their g-prefixed versions). – 0 _ Sep 18 '14 at 22:01
I've recently installed the Linux version of locate from MacPorts. Unfortunately, the updatedb port is broken, which of course renders the newer Linux version of locate as useless. – Seamus Jun 26 '22 at 18:42

score 5 · Answer 4 · edited Dec 07 '23 at 21:31

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.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 13 '20 at 08:25

0

Actually you can use the GNU locate & update in mac too.

brew install findutils --with-default-names

export PATH="$(brew --prefix findutils)/libexec/gnubin:$PATH"
export MANPATH="$(brew --prefix findutils)/libexec/gnuman:$MANPATH"

which locate

answered Feb 13 '20 at 08:25

Iceberg

181

or to avoid the name collision with the macos ootb locate install without the --with-default-names switch and then invoke via glocate – ccpizza Feb 15 '24 at 12:28

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

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