`xargs` command

Build and run commands from standard input.

Shell & scheduling
Package findutils
6 options · 5 examples

Read the full guide Jump to examples All commands

On this page

Syntax
Common options
Examples
Guides
Related commands

Syntax

xargs [options] [command]

Provided by the findutils package. Run man xargs for the full manual.

Common options

Option	What it does
`-n N`	Pass at most N arguments per command
`-I {}`	Replace {} with each input item
`-0`	Items are separated by NUL (use with find -print0)
`-P N`	Run up to N commands in parallel
`-r`	Don't run the command if the input is empty
`-p`	Ask before each command

Examples

Delete files found by find

find . -name "*.tmp" -print0 | xargs -0 rm -f

One argument per command
```
echo a b c | xargs -n 1 echo
```
Use a placeholder
```
cat urls.txt | xargs -I {} curl -sO {}
```
Run 4 jobs in parallel
```
ls *.png | xargs -P 4 -I {} optipng {}
```

Grep inside the files find returns

find . -name "*.conf" | xargs grep -l "listen"

xargs guides

xargs Command in Linux with Useful Examples Linux Commands · Updated Apr 2025
How to use ‘find’ command with ‘xargs’ to parallelize file operations in Linux Linux Commands · Updated Apr 2025

← All Linux commands · Suggest a fix