Because it's a good/easy way to insert the file name into the _middle_ of the statement. For example: find . -name "*.gif" -exec convert "{}" "{}.png" \; W

Because it's a good/easy way to insert the file name into the _middle_ of the statement. For example: find . -name "*.gif" -exec convert "{}" "{}.png" \; Will convert every GIF in the current directory (and its descendants) into a PNG, assuming imagemagick's convert is on your path. Is there a better way? Not that I know of.