Questions[mv](ubuntu)

I moved all files from one directory using mv and accidentally made a typo in the target location path.

The system returned a message that the directory does not exists, but my files from source directory got erased.

Is that a bug? Should moving files to a nonexistent location erase the files being moved? (This is on Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS.)

The specifics were:

1. Created test.txt file.
2. Moved the file to /ben with sudo.
3. The file disappeared. /ben does not exist.

The commands and output were:

ben.b@c-w46:~/Desktop/test-folder$ sudo mv test.txt /ben
ben.b@c-w46:~/Desktop/test-folder$ cd /ben
bash: cd: /ben: Not a directory

I was in my /etc directory and typed the command

me@mylaptop:/etc$ sudo mv MyFile.conf /openvpn

I thought that would move the file into the directory openvpn which is a subdirectory of the /etc directory. However, that doesn't seem to be what happened. All that I can confirm is that the command got executed.

I did this:

mv couchpotato_11-08-2016_09-35.tar.gz ~/AtoMiC-ToolKit/backup
mv transmission-daemon_11-08-2016_09-36.tar.gz ~/AtoMiC-ToolKit/backup
mv sickrage_11-08-2016_09-35.tar.gz ~/AtoMiC-ToolKit/backup

But backup was no directory or file, and now the files are gone.

How do I find or restore these files?

I have millions of images on my ubuntu cloud server. When I move a complete folder containing 12 million images using mv command, it happens almost instantaneously. However, when I mv only images(not the folder) then it takes some time. Is there a way to move all the images as quickly as folders ?

This is what is happening:

1. src folder has 12 million images and I move this to dst folder using

   $ mv  src ../dst
   

   Happens immediately

2. Inside src folder I do this to move:

   find -maxdepth 1 -name '*.jpg' -exec mv -t ../../dst/ {} +
   

   This takes some time.

Is there a way to speed up the second process ?

I want to mv files and not overwrite duplicates. The -b switch only makes a single backup file, whereas I may have many.

According to the mv man page:

The backup suffix is '~', unless set with --suffix or SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX. The version control method may be selected via the --backup option or through the VERSION_CONTROL environment variable. Here are the values:

none, off: never make backups (even if --backup is given)
numbered, t: make numbered backups
existing, nil: numbered if numbered backups exist, simple otherwise
simple, never: always make simple backups

I think I want to use the 'existing, nil' option... but I can't figure out how to call that.

If my command is:

mv $src $dest

How can I implement the 'existing, nil' option?