Locate (Unix)
standard UNIX utility
locate is a Unix utility which serves to find files on filesystems. It searches through a prebuilt database of files generated by the updatedb command or by a daemon and compressed using incremental encoding. It operates significantly faster than find, but requires regular updating of the database. This sacrifices overall efficiency (because of the regular interrogation of filesystems even when no user needs information) and absolute accuracy (since the database does not update in real time) for significant speed improvements, particularly on very large filesystems.
Implementations of locate
locate was first created in 1982. The BSD and GNU Findutils versions derive from the original implementation. A locate command is also included in MacOS.
mlocate (Merging Locate) and the earlier slocate (Secure Locate) use a restricted-access database, only showing filenames accessible to the user.
GNU findutils' locate database can be built either in the traditional way (as a world-readable database of files accessible by everybody) or in the manner of slocate, in which the database contains more files, but the output is filtered to show the user only the names of files they have access to.
plocate uses posting lists. Like mlocate and slocate, it only shows files if find would list it.
The public source identifies “Locate (Unix)” as standard UNIX utility. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Locate, Unix and standard.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q709128. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1982.
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This entry incorporates text from “Locate (Unix)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.