Living in the Shell #12; mv (Move/Rename Files/Directories)
mv
🧳
Moves/renames files or directories.
⚠️ Default behavior is to overwrite destination files.
Rename a single file
cd ~ && mv .bashrc .bashrc-renamed
Move a single file into a directory
cd ~ && mv .bashrc Documents
Note that the
Documents
directory should exist.
Move a single file onto a specific new path (filename)
cd ~ && mv .bashrc Documents/.bashrc-moved
Move a whole directory
mv my-src-dir ~/Documents/my-dest-dir
⚠️ Note that if
my-dest-dir
already exists,my-new-src
will be moved under it; i.e., you would have your files underDocuments/my-dest-dir/my-src-dir
Create backup for existing destination files -b
cd ~ && mv -b .bashrc Documents/.bashrc-moved
Move by wildcard selection -t
cd ~ && mv -t target-dir *.zip *.txt
Moves all
.zip
and.txt
files totarget-dir
directory.
Set to ask for overwriting -i
cd ~ && mv -i .bashrc Documents
Set to keep existing files (no overwrite) -n
cd ~ && mv -n .bashrc Documents
About Living in the Shell
Obsessed with doing things in the shell, I’ve decided to share my daily struggles on living in the shell as terse but informative posts.