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Accepted
Ian Kelling
Asked: 2009-10-22 17:59:49 +0800 CST

windows equivalent of linux's mv?

  • 772

I just want an equivalent of "mv dir target", and have dir get moved to target\dir.

  • cmd move doesn't even work across filesystems
  • powershell's doesn't either
  • xcopy doesn't move
  • robocopy fails at "robocopy.exe /move p1 p2 dir-in-p1" (the syntax here is the problem, see the accepted answer)
windows

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Robocopy does it fine.

    taking the folder logs and moving it into the documents folder (same level):

    robocopy logs documents\logs /move

    This worked fine, it moved it without needing a folder created ahead of time and its no longer in the original location.

    • 7

  2. Not sure what's wrong with running the built-in move command - it moves across file systems just fine on my desktop (Windows XP).

    F:\>help move
Moves files and renames files and directories.

To move one or more files:
MOVE [/Y | /-Y] [drive:][path]filename1[,...] destination

To rename a directory:
MOVE [/Y | /-Y] [drive:][path]dirname1 dirname2

  [drive:][path]filename1 Specifies the location and name of the file
                          or files you want to move.
  destination             Specifies the new location of the file. Destination
                          can consist of a drive letter and colon, a
                          directory name, or a combination. If you are moving
                          only one file, you can also include a filename if
                          you want to rename the file when you move it.
  [drive:][path]dirname1  Specifies the directory you want to rename.
  dirname2                Specifies the new name of the directory.

  /Y                      Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to
                          overwrite an existing destination file.
  /-Y                     Causes prompting to confirm you want to overwrite
                          an existing destination file.

The switch /Y may be present in the COPYCMD environment variable.
This may be overridden with /-Y on the command line.  Default is
to prompt on overwrites unless MOVE command is being executed from
within a batch script.
    • 3

  3. My approach is to install Cygwin and use 'mv'. But, then, whenever I'm forced to work on Windows installing Cygwin is one of my first actions.

    • 2