Move files from subfolder to current folder

Question

Say my files on a Ubuntu server are like: /folder1/folder2/

I am in folder1 currently, and I want to move all files/folders (recursive) from folder2 to the current folder.

How can I do this?

score 18 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 07 '11 at 19:39

18

shorter version:

mv folder2/* .

answered Feb 07 '11 at 19:39

panaroik

832
5
12

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 07 '11 at 02:16

3

mv /folder1/folder2/* /folder1/

answered Feb 07 '11 at 02:16

James Marthenal

77
1
7

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 07 '11 at 20:05

there is a caveat to be aware of if you have invisible files (starting with '.') in your folder. dotglob (*) won't expand (and mv won't move) invisible files unless you change it's behaviour with shopt. shopt -s dotglob to expand invisible files and shopt -u dotglob to switch back to default.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 01 '17 at 03:26

0

recursively move files to current folder:

find -type f -exec mv -v {} . \;

be aware that you won't be overwriting existing files.

answered Nov 01 '17 at 03:26

kazuni

1

You should have explained how that will behave differently from the earlier answers and in what circumstances that would be desirable. – kasperd Nov 01 '17 at 07:44
For instance, this would work when there are more files than can fit into one shell command. Or you're in a shell that doesn't support globbing. – chicks Nov 01 '17 at 13:36

Move files from subfolder to current folder

4 Answers4