find doesn't search within subdirectories I'm using find . -name '*~' to find files that end with ~ but it only shows files that are not in the subdirectories. When I use find . -name "#*" it shows all files including the ones that are in the subdirectories.
If the subdirectory is a symbolic link, find will not follow it by default. Try:

find -L . -name '*~'


See this document for more.