App For Multiple Terminal How To Navigate Files

If you specify a name for its destination, the mv command changes the files name when it moves the file.

App For Multiple Terminal How To Navigate Files

Youve learned how to navigate files and folders with the command line and get help when you need it from man pages.

Ill also show you how to create directories (thats Unix-speak for folders), so you can move files to new places.

Why bother with the command line Its certainly easy to copy and move files in the Finder, but there are a number of reasons why you might want to do this from the command line instead.

These files, which can contain settings for certain apps or parts of the Mac, contain a dot (.) before their names, and the Finder doesnt show them.

The file is no longer on the Desktop, and is found only in the Documents folder.

However, if you drag a file from your Desktop to an external hard disk, youll see that the file remains in its original location; this file has been copied.

You may know that you can copy a file in the Finder, even on the same hard disk, by holding down the Option key when you drag it.).

The first does the same as dragging a file to a new location on the same hard disk; the second does what an Option-drag does, or what happens when you drag a file to a different disk or volume.

How to copy files Copying files with the cp command is simple.

First, launch Terminal (in your ApplicationsUtilities folder).

Then, use the following syntax to create your command: cp source destination For example, to copy a file named MyFile.rtf from your Desktop folder to your Documents folder, you would type in the following command in Terminal and then press Return: cp DesktopMyFile.rtf Documents Youll now have a file named MyFile.rtf on your Desktop, and a copy of that file in your Documents folder.

Youll remember from Master the command line: Navigating files and folders that the tilde () symbol is a shortcut for your Home folder, which contains your Documents folder.

Note that if theres no file there, or if you type the name incorrectly, Terminal will give you a No such file or directory error.

This uses a special flag or option with the cp command: the -R or recursive flag.

When you use options with commands, this additional letteralways preceded by a hyphen (-)tells the command to do something a bit differently.

The recursive option tells the cp command to copy every item in the folder: every sub-folder, every file and folder in every sub-folder, and so one, all the way down, to the new location.

So you can copy a directory from your Desktop to your Documents folder like this: cp -R DesktopMyFolder Documents How to move files Youve probably guessed that the mv command works in the same way.

The first moves a file to a different disk or volume; remember, just as in the Finder, copying a file to a different volume wont delete the original, whereas moving will.

So you could issue this command to move a file from your Desktop to a folder on a backup disk: mv DesktopMyFile.rtf VolumesBackupMyFolder You can also move directories with the mv command.

The syntax is the same, and you dont need the -R flag as you do with the cp command.: mv DesktopMyFolder VolumesBackup How to copy or move multiple files One of the great things about the command line is the way you can use wildcards to simplify commands.

For example, if you want to copy all the.rtf files (Rich Text Files) from your Desktop to your Documents folder, you can use the asterisk () wildcard: cp Desktop.rtf Documents You can use the same wildcard with the mv command to move multiple files.

How to rename files The mv command also lets you quickly rename files.

What you do is essentially move a file to the same location, but change its name.

App For Multiple Terminal Mac