The integrated find -atime option does not follow the access time of the file. I believe it is still referencing the mtime from my testing. The GNU version (findutils) does not have this issue. Output: /test # find --help BusyBox v1.35.0 (2022-05-09 17:27:12 UTC) multi-call binary. Usage: find [-HL] [PATH]... [OPTIONS] [ACTIONS] ... /test # stat old File: old Size: 0 Blocks: 0 IO Block: 4096 regular empty file Device: 0,107 Inode: 692229 Links: 1 Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root) Access: 2022-07-09 03:26:00.000000000 +0000 Modify: 2022-07-01 03:26:00.000000000 +0000 Change: 2022-07-11 03:36:15.549088648 +0000 Birth: - /test # date Mon Jul 11 03:36:27 UTC 2022 /test # find . -atime +1 ./old /test # find . -atime +3 ./old /test # find . -atime +10 /test # Expected: /test # find . -atime +1 ./old /test # find . -atime +3 /test # Environment: Alpine Linux 3.16.0 (Docker Image/Busybox v1.35.0) w/ Kernel 5.17.11