grep Cheat Sheet: Command Examples, Regex & Windows (2026)

The Basics

Command	What it does
	Print lines containing error
	Case insensitive (matches Error, ERROR)
	Show line numbers
	Invert: lines that do NOT match
	Count matching lines instead of printing them
	Match whole words only (skips passport)
	Match whole lines only
	Print only the matched text, not the whole line
	Stop after the first match
	List files that match, not the lines
	List files that do NOT match
	Fixed string: treat the pattern literally, no regex
	Silent; exit code only (for in scripts)

counts matching lines, not occurrences. For total occurrences use .

Recursive Search

Command	What it does
	Search every file under the current directory
	Recursive with file name and line number
	Recursive, case insensitive
	Just the file names (feeds nicely into xargs)
	Only search .py files
	Skip minified files
	Skip a directory
	Skip several directories
	Like -r, but also follows symlinks

Multiple Patterns

Command	What it does
	OR: match either pattern
	OR with extended regex
	Read patterns from a file, one per line
	AND: lines containing both
	Match one, exclude another
	Exclude several patterns
	Count lines matching either

Regex

grep's default dialect is basic regex (BRE). Add for extended regex (ERE), where , , , and work without backslashes. works on every grep, including macOS.

Pattern	Matches
	Any single character
	Zero or more of the previous item
	error at the start of the line
	error at the end of the line
	Empty lines
	Any one of these characters
	Any character that is not a digit
	Character ranges
, ,	POSIX classes (portable stand-ins for \d, \s)
	A literal dot (escape to match them literally)
	Word boundaries (same idea as -w)

With :

Pattern	Matches
	One or more: gogle, google, gooogle
	Optional: color and colour
	Alternation
	Grouping: ab, abab
	Repetition counts (start of an IP address)

unlocks Perl regex (, , lookaheads) but only exists in GNU grep. The grep on macOS and BSD does not have it: use with POSIX classes, or and call .

Context Lines

Command	What it does
	Show 3 lines After each match
	Show 3 lines Before each match
	3 lines of Context on both sides
	Context plus line numbers

Groups of matches are separated by a line. Nearby matches merge into one block.

Pipes and xargs

grep is at its best at the end of a pipe. See the awk cheat sheet for what usually comes after it.

Command	What it does
	Find a running process
	Same, without grep matching its own process line
	Search your shell history
	Kernel messages about USB
	Which proxy variables are set
	Which log files contain error
	Find files, then edit them (see the sed cheat sheet)
	Safe with spaces in file names

grep on Windows

Windows has no grep built in, but both shells have an equivalent.

Command	What it does
	cmd: basic search
	cmd: case insensitive, recursive (roughly )
	cmd: invert, like
	cmd: regex, in findstr's own limited dialect
	PowerShell: the real grep equivalent, full regex
	PowerShell: grep is case sensitive by default, Select-String is not
	PowerShell: recursive search
	PowerShell: sls is the short alias

Git Bash and WSL both ship genuine GNU grep, so works there unchanged.

Gotchas

is GNU-only. On macOS, fails with "invalid option"; use or install GNU grep (, then ).
Always quote the pattern. Unquoted, the shell expands and against your files before grep ever sees them.
grep exits 1 when nothing matches. In a script with that kills the script; append when no-match is fine.
In basic regex, and are literal characters. matches the literal text go+gle; you want .
"Binary file matches" means the file has non-text bytes. forces it to be treated as text.
grep finds lines, sed edits them, and awk works on columns. The three cover most text jobs between them.

grep Cheat Sheet FAQ

How do I grep for multiple patterns at once?

For OR, either repeat -e (grep -e error -e warn file.log) or use extended regex: grep -E 'error|warn' file.log. With many patterns, put them one per line in a file and use grep -f patterns.txt. For AND, chain greps: grep error file.log | grep nginx keeps lines containing both. To exclude several patterns, combine -v with -E: grep -v -E 'debug|trace'.

How do I exclude a directory from a recursive grep?

Use --exclude-dir: grep -r "text" . --exclude-dir=node_modules. Repeat it for more directories or brace-expand: --exclude-dir={node_modules,.git,dist}. The name is matched against each directory's basename, not its path. --exclude="*.min.js" does the same for files, and --include="*.py" flips it around so only matching files are searched.

What is the difference between grep -E and grep -P?

-E turns on extended regex (ERE), where +, ?, |, () and {} work without backslashes; it is POSIX and works everywhere, including macOS. -P turns on Perl-compatible regex (PCRE), which adds \d, \s, \w, lookaheads and lazy quantifiers, but it is a GNU extension: the BSD grep that ships with macOS does not have it. On a Mac, rewrite \d as [0-9] with -E, or install GNU grep with brew install grep and call ggrep -P.

How do I grep for an exact match?

Depends what exact means. grep -w port matches port as a whole word, so it skips passport and portable. grep -x "exact line" matches only lines that are entirely that text. grep -F 'a.b[1]' treats the pattern as a literal string, so regex characters like dots and brackets lose their meaning. -w and -F combine when you need both.

Does grep work on Windows?

Not out of the box. cmd has findstr (findstr /S /I "error" *.log is roughly grep -ri), which covers basic cases but has a limited regex dialect. PowerShell's Select-String is much closer to real grep and supports full .NET regex. If you have Git for Windows or WSL installed, you already have genuine GNU grep in Git Bash or the WSL shell.