Copying, Moving, and Removing Files

Commands for moving, copying, and deleting files are fairly straight forward:

• cp - Used to copy a file

• mv - Used to move (or rename) a file

• rm - Used to remove (delete) a file

These commands can be used to act on individual files and directories, or recursively to act on many files and directories at once.

Copying Files

Here are some examples of using the cp command to copy files from one location to another:

Command	Result
cp abc def	Copies abc to the new name def in the same directory
cp abc ~	Copies abc to your home directory (~), retaining the name abc
cp -r /usr/share/doc/bash-completion* /tmp/a/	Copies the bash-completion directory, and all of the files it contains, to /tmp/a/ On copying, current date/time stamps are used, and permissions are determined by your umask
cp -ra /usr/share/doc/bash-completion* /tmp/b/	Copies the bash-completion directory, and all of the files it contains, to /tmp/b/ Thanks to the archive (-a) option, the date/time stamps and permissions are unmodified by the copy, and retain the details of the original files

The cp command is typically aliased with the -i option in order to prevent you from inadvertently overwriting files.

Moving and Renaming Files

To move or rename a file, we leverage the mv command. When we "rename" a file in Linux, what we are really doing is moving the file to the same directory it currently sits in, and calling the newly moved file by a new name. This gives the illusion that the original file has simply been modified, when this is not technically accurate.

The following table has some examples of the mv command in action:

Command	Result
mv abc def	Renames abc to the new name def in the same directory
mv abc ~	Moves abc to your home directory (~), retaining the name abc
mv /home/chris/mymemos/ /home/chris/Documents/	Moves the/home/chris/mymemos directory (and all its contents) to the /home/chris/Documents directory

By default, the mv command overwrites any existing files if the file to which you are moving exists. However, many Linux systems alias the mv command so that it uses the -i option, which causes mv to prompt you before overwriting existing files. Here’s how to check if that is true on your system:

$ alias mv

Removing Files

Here are some examples of the rm command:

Command	Result
rm abc	Deletes the abc file
rm *	Removes all of the files in the current directory; doesn’t remove directories and/or any files that start with a dot

If you want to remove a directory, you need to use the recursive (-r) option, or use the alternative command rmdir - not that the directory must be empty for this to work.

Consider the following examples:

Command	Result
rmdir /home/chris/nothing	Only removes the directory (nothing) if it is empty
rm -r /home/chris/bigdir	Removes the directory bigdir and all of its contents (files and multiple levels of subdirectories), but it prompts you before each is removed
rm -rf /home/chris/hugedir	As before, but minus the prompts - make sure you are SURE!

As with the cp and mv commands, rm is also usually aliased to include the -i option. This can prevent the damage that can come from an inadvertent recursive remove (-r) option.