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Michael
Asked: 2012-08-07 07:14:33 +0800 CST

How do I move all files from one folder to another using the command line?

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I would like to know how could I move all files from a folder to another folder with a command line.

Let's say I'm in my Downloads folder and there are a 100 files that I would like to move to my Videos folder, without having to write all the files name.

command-line

12 Answers

  1. Open a terminal and execute this command:

    mv  -v ~/Downloads/* ~/Videos/

    It will move all the files and folders from Downloads folder to Videos folder.

    To move all files, but not folders:

    If you are interested in moving all files (but not folders) from Downloads folder to Videos folder, use this command 

    find ~/Downloads/ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 mv -t ~/Videos

    To move only files from the Download folders, but not from sub-folders:

    If you want to move all files from the Downloads folder, but not any files within folders in the Download folder, use this command:

    find ~/Downloads/ -maxdepth 1 -type f -print0 | xargs -0 mv -t ~/Videos

    here, -maxdepth option specifies how deep find should try, 1 means, only the directory specified in the find command. You can try using 2, 3 also to test.

    See the Ubuntu find manpage for a detailed explanation

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  2. mv ~/Downloads/* ~/Videos

    It will move all the files including subfolders in the directory you want to mv. If you want to cp (copy) or rm (remove) you will need the -r (recursive) option to include subfolders.

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  3. For the simple case:

    mv ~/Downloads/* ~/Videos

    If you want to move dot (hidden) files too, then set the dotglob shell option.

    shopt -s dotglob
mv ~/Downloads/* ~/Videos

    This leaves the shell option set.

    For one time dotglob use, run the commands in a subshell:

    (shopt -s dotglob; mv ~/Downloads/* ~/Videos)
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  4. It's possible by using rsync, for example:

    rsync -vau --remove-source-files src/ dst/

    where:

    -v, --verbose: Increase verbosity.

    -a, --archive: Archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H, -A, -X).

    -u, --update: Skip files that are newer on the receiver.

    --remove-source-files This tells rsync to remove from the sending side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.

    If you've root privileges, prefix with sudo to override potential permission issues.

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  5. To move a directory with or without content to its new name just like how you would use the mv command to rename a file:

    mv -T dir1 dir2

    where:

    • -T treats the destination as a normal file
    • dir1 is the original name of the directory
    • dir2 is the new name of the directory

    NB: dir2 doesn't have to exist.

    I hope this saves someone a lot of time, as a noob, before this, I would create a directory with the new name and then move the contents of the directory to the directory created earlier.

    Use for subdirectories

    This command is useful when many files have been saved in a subfolder of the target directory i.e. Downloads/mp4. In this example, running mv -T Downloads/mp4 Videos will result in mp4 subfolder being removed and all files contained inside are moved to Videos folder.

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  6. Use 

    mv -v ~/rootfolder/branch/* ~/rootfolder

    I hope this helps. Because I had the same pain and wasted a lot of time fixing my mistake.

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  7. mv source_path/* destination_path/

    here you have to put forward slash and * after source path so that it will take files inside source_path instead of the complete source directory.

    Example: mv /home/username/test/* /home/username/test2/

    The above command moves all files (unless they are hidden) in the source directory to the destination directory.

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    1. Go to the command line and get into the directory you want to move it to with cd folderNamehere
    2. Type pwd. This will print the directory you want to move it too.
    3. Then change to the directory where all of the files are with cd folderNamehere
    4. Now to move all the files type mv *.* typeAnswerFromStep2here

    That will move all files from that directory to the other.

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  9. try it

    find ~/Desktop -type f -iname  "*.mp4" -exec mv {} ~/Videos \;

    -type with the argument -type you can specify type file.on this statement that is the mean file.if using of -d that means directory.

    -iname: the most common and obvious method to look for a file is using its -name argument.if you are not sure about its case-sensitivity you can use of -iname argument

    mv {} and finally to specify target directory and then moving the files on there using mv {} argument

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  10. This command should do it:

    sudo find ~/Downloads -mindepth 1 -prune -exec mv '{}' ~/Videos \;

    It moves all visible and hidden files, and doesn't throw unnecessary errors, not even if the source directory is empty.

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