Some working example on how to use find together with xargs

find syntax:

find [options] <where> <what>

find -L . -name *17a69*

find in local directory (.) and subdirectories (also follows symbolic links due to option -L) all files that contains 17a69 in the name

find . -cmin -30

find all files in current directory that changed status in the last 30 minutes. Use -amin or -mmin to find those that where accessed or modified in the last 30 minutes. Use -ctime -atime -mtime to specify days.

find . -cmin +30

same as above, but looks for files created/accessed/modified MORE than 30 minutes ago

xargs

xargs let you apply a comand to a list of arguments found by, for instance, find

find . -name interm -type d | xargs rm -r

find all directory that match “interm” and delete them

find . -mmin +100 -type f | xargs -I xxx mv xxx ~/tmp1/

finds all files (-type f) modified more than 100 minutes ago and then move them to ~/tmp1
-I xxx tell xargs to put the arguments where the next occurrence of xxx is

Some links

Unix Find Command Tutorial
Some examples of using UNIX find command