Find different types of files and move to a specific directory

Question

Finding *.mkv and *.mp4 works

find /home6/movies/ -name '*.mp4' -o -name '*.mkv'

but moving them for some reason partially fails and moves only mkv files

find /home6/movies/ -name '*.mp4' -o -name '*.mkv' -exec mv {} /home6/archive/ \;

Am I using an incorrect find switch "-o" for this task?

It's because they are bad people). I also do not understand them. Downvoting without an explanation is a bad practice. I like your question. — Gryu, Apr 23 '20 at 20:55

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 15 '18 at 00:33

Looks like you need to surround the or expression in parentheses so the exec applies to both matches.

find /home6/movies/ \( -name '*.mp4' -o -name '*.mkv' \) -exec mv {} /home6/archive/ \;

1 Answers1