Get most recent file in a directory on Linux

ls -Art | tail -n 1

This will return the latest modified file or directory. Not very elegant, but it works.

Used flags:

-A list all files except . and ..

-r reverse order while sorting

-t sort by time, newest first

ls -t | head -n1

This command actually gives the latest modified file or directory in the current working directory.

ls -lAtr | tail -1

The other solutions do not include files that start with '.'.

This command will also include '.' and '..', which may or may not be what you want:

ls -latr | tail -1

If you want to get the most recent changed file also including any subdirectories you can do it with this little oneliner:

find . -type f -exec stat -c '%Y %n' {} \; | sort -nr | awk -v var="1" 'NR==1,NR==var {print $0}' | while read t f; do d=$(date -d @$t "+%b %d %T %Y"); echo "$d -- $f"; done

If you want to do the same not for changed files, but for accessed files you simple have to change the

%Y parameter from the stat command to %X. And your command for most recent accessed files looks like this:

find . -type f -exec stat -c '%X %n' {} \; | sort -nr | awk -v var="1" 'NR==1,NR==var {print $0}' | while read t f; do d=$(date -d @$t "+%b %d %T %Y"); echo "$d -- $f"; done

For both commands you also can change the var="1" parameter if you want to list more than just one file.

With only Bash builtins, closely following BashFAQ/003:

shopt -s nullglob

for f in * .*; do
    [[ -d $f ]] && continue
    [[ $f -nt $latest ]] && latest=$f
done

printf '%s\n' "$latest"

using R recursive option .. you may consider this as enhancement for good answers here

ls -arRtlh | tail -50

Presuming you don't care about hidden files that start with a .

ls -rt | tail -n 1

Otherwise

ls -Art | tail -n 1

ls -Frt | grep "[^/]$" | tail -n 1

Find the file with prefix of shravan* and view

less $(ls -Art shravan* | tail -n 1)