inotifywait

Waits for changes to one or more files. More information: <https://manned.org/inotifywait>.

Install

All systems
curl cmd.cat/inotifywait.sh
Debian Debian
apt-get install inotify-tools
Ubuntu
apt-get install inotify-tools
Alpine
apk add inotify-tools
Arch Arch Linux
pacman -S inotify-tools
image/svg+xml Kali Linux
apt-get install inotify-tools
Fedora
dnf install inotify-tools
Windows (WSL2)
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install inotify-tools
Raspbian
apt-get install inotify-tools
Dockerfile
dockerfile.run/inotifywait
Docker
docker run cmd.cat/inotifywait inotifywait powered by Commando

Waits for changes to one or more files. More information: <https://manned.org/inotifywait>.

  • Watch a specific file for events, exiting after the first one:
    inotifywait path/to/file
  • Continuously watch a specific file for events without exiting:
    inotifywait --monitor path/to/file
  • Watch a directory recursively for events:
    inotifywait --monitor --recursive path/to/directory
  • Watch a directory for changes, excluding files, whose names match a regular expression:
    inotifywait --monitor --recursive --exclude "regular_expression" path/to/directory
  • Watch a file for changes, exiting when no event occurs for 30 seconds:
    inotifywait --monitor --timeout 30 path/to/file
  • Only watch a file for file modification events:
    inotifywait --event modify path/to/file
  • Watch a file printing only events, and no status messages:
    inotifywait --quiet path/to/file
  • Run a command when a file is accessed:
    inotifywait --event access path/to/file && command

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