Question

I would like to find the most recently changed file in a directory, excluding hidden files (the ones that start with .) and also excluding directories.

This question is headed in the right direction, but not exactly what I need:

Linux: Most recent file in a directory

The key here is to exclude directories…

Answer 1

Like the answer there except without -A

ls -rt | tail -n 1

Look at man ls for more info.

To make it exclude directories, we use the -F option to add a “/” to each directory, and then filter for those that don’t have the “/”:

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