The locate command is an efficient way of searching a database which lists the files and folders on your machine. The DB is updatedly nightly for you.

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Help

From manpage for Linux.

Official descripton:

locate - list files in databases that match a pattern

Setup

Install

$ brew install findutils

Note that locate database (/var/db/locate.database) will not exist.

Configure

To create the database, run the following command:

$ sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist

Usage

$ locate 'search terms'

e.g.

$ locate .py | head