diff --git a/nixos/modules/misc/locate.nix b/nixos/modules/misc/locate.nix
index 204a8914300..192c9ec413c 100644
--- a/nixos/modules/misc/locate.nix
+++ b/nixos/modules/misc/locate.nix
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ in
 
     locate = mkOption {
       type = package;
-      default = pkgs.findutils;
+      default = pkgs.findutils.locate;
       defaultText = literalExpression "pkgs.findutils";
       example = literalExpression "pkgs.mlocate";
       description = ''
diff --git a/pkgs/tools/misc/findutils/default.nix b/pkgs/tools/misc/findutils/default.nix
index 56d710c8545..3c3b15962a7 100644
--- a/pkgs/tools/misc/findutils/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/tools/misc/findutils/default.nix
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     && (stdenv.hostPlatform.libc != "musl")
     && stdenv.hostPlatform == stdenv.buildPlatform;
 
-  outputs = [ "out" "info" ];
+  outputs = [ "out" "info" "locate"];
 
   configureFlags = [
     # "sort" need not be on the PATH as a run-time dep, so we need to tell
@@ -46,6 +46,18 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     "-D__nonnull\\(params\\)="
   ];
 
+  postInstall = ''
+    moveToOutput bin/locate $locate
+    moveToOutput bin/updatedb $locate
+  '';
+
+  # can't move man pages in postInstall because the multi-output hook will move them back to $out
+  postFixup = ''
+    moveToOutput share/man/man5 $locate
+    moveToOutput share/man/man1/locate.1.gz $locate
+    moveToOutput share/man/man1/updatedb.1.gz $locate
+  '';
+
   enableParallelBuilding = true;
 
   meta = {
@@ -62,9 +74,12 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
       The tools supplied with this package are:
 
           * find - search for files in a directory hierarchy;
+          * xargs - build and execute command lines from standard input.
+
+      The following are available in the locate output:
+
           * locate - list files in databases that match a pattern;
           * updatedb - update a file name database;
-          * xargs - build and execute command lines from standard input.
     '';
 
     platforms = lib.platforms.all;