How to move and overwrite all files from one directory to another

Question

I know of the mv command to move a file from one place to another  but how do I move all files from one directory into another  that has a bunch of other files   overwriting if the file already exists

User · Answer

For moving and overwriting files  it doesn t look like there is the -R option  when in doubt check your options by typing  your cmd  --help  Also  this answer depends on how you want to move your file  Move all files  files  amp  directories  replace files at destination  etc   When you type in mv --help it returns the description of all options   For mv  the syntax is mv  option   file source   file destination   To move simple files  mv image jpg folder image jpg  To move as folder into destination mv folder home folder  To move all files in source to destination mv folder   home folder   Use -v if you want to see what is being done  mv -v  Use -i to prompt before overwriting  mv -i  Use -u to update files in destination  It will only move source files newer than the file in the destination  and when it doesn t exist yet  mv -u  Tie options together like mv -viu  etc

User · Answer

It s just mv srcdir   targetdir    If there are too many files in srcdir you might want to try something like the following approach   cd srcdir find -exec mv    targetdir      In contrast to    the final   collects arguments in an xargs like manner instead of executing mv once for every file

User · Answer

In linux shell  many commands accept multiple parameters and therefore could be used with wild cards  So  for example if you want to move all files from folder A to folder B  you write   mv A   B   If you want to move all files with a certain  look  to it  you could do like this   mv A   txt B   Which copies all files that are blablabla txt to folder B  Star     can substitute any number of characters or letters while   can substitute one  For example if you have many files in the shape file number ext and you want to move only the ones that have two digit numbers  you could use a command like this   mv A file    ext B   Or more complicated examples   mv A fi     e  B   For files that look like fi lt -something-   lt -two characters-  e lt -something-   Unlike many commands in shell that require -R to  for example  copy or remove subfolders  mv does that itself   Remember that mv overwrites without asking  unless the files being overwritten are read only or you don t have permission  so make sure you don t lose anything in the process   For your future information  if you have subfolders that you want to copy  you could use the -R option  saying you want to do the command recursively  So it would look something like this   cp A   B -R   By the way  all I said works with rm  remove  delete  and cp  copy  too and beware  because once you delete  there is no turning back  Avoid commands like rm   -R unless you are sure what you are doing

User · Answer

If you simply need to answer  y  to all the overwrite prompts  try this    y   mv srcdir   targetdir

User · Answer

mv -f source target   From the man page   -f  --force           do not prompt before overwriting

User · Answer

It s also possible by using rsync  for example   rsync -va --delete-after src  dst    where    -v  --verbose                increase verbosity -a  --archive                archive mode  equals -rlptgoD  no -H -A -X  --delete-after  delete files on the receiving side be done after the transfer has completed   If you ve root privileges  prefix with sudo to override potential permission issues

[linux] How to move (and overwrite) all files from one directory to another?

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