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How can I use the Linux terminal to copy everything in current directory to a subdirectory?

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  • Do you mean copy or move?
    – Craig
    Aug 25, 2010 at 19:14

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
13

If you want to copy the contents of the folder recursively (will throw 1 error, alternatives below):

cp -r * sub/

A little more hacky, but works on non-empty subdirectories:

TARGETDIR='targetdir here';cp -r `find . -maxdepth 1 ! -name "$TARGETDIR"` "$TARGETDIR"

Another oneliner:

TARGETDIR='targetdir here';for file in *;do test "$file" != "$TARGETDIR" && cp "$file" "$TARGETDIR/";done

Or recursive:

TARGETDIR='z';for file in *;do test "$file" != "$TARGETDIR" && cp -r "$file" "$TARGETDIR/";done
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  • this does not work in case sub/ is not empty -> sub will copied into sub again, unless that is what @Oguz wanted.
    – Rahul
    Aug 25, 2010 at 17:49
  • Ok I'm finally satisfied with the find code :D
    – Lekensteyn
    Aug 25, 2010 at 17:59
  • 2
    Your second command fails for filenames that include spaces. Use xargs or -exec. No need for grep - use ! -name "$TARGETDIR" or similar. You have unmatched quotes around $file. I don't think a recursive cp will work the way you intend in any but your first command.
    – Dennis Williamson
    Aug 25, 2010 at 19:00
  • Wohaa, missed a quote in the last codes. Good comment Dennis, I never thought of using -name in this case :)
    – Lekensteyn
    Aug 25, 2010 at 19:21
5

Supposing target is the name of the target subdirectory, if your shell is bash:

shopt -s extglob
cp -r !(target) target/

In ksh, you can directly do cp -r !(target) target/.

In zsh, you can do setopt ksh_glob then cp -r !(target) target/. Another possibility is setopt extended_glob then cp -r ^target target/.

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3

I would suggest moving the target directory outside the source directory and then put it back again; mv is free (if you are careful not to move to a different filesystem), unless you are expecting other processes to interfere/be interfered.

Most solutions posted above won't work if there are spaces in filenames. I would suggest using variants of find -print0 | xargs -0, or find -exec, etc.

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0

Will this work for you?

cp -r * subdir/

If you meant to move instead of copying everything in the current dir to a subdirectory, you could do:

mv * subdir/
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4
  • this does not take care of non-empty directories
    – Rahul
    Aug 25, 2010 at 17:47
  • I just tested, and it worked.
    – karlphillip
    Aug 25, 2010 at 17:49
  • you need to copy the non-empty directories recursively like @Lekensteyn suggested.
    – Rahul
    Aug 25, 2010 at 17:53
  • will throw error cp: cannot copy a directory, 'a', into itself, 'a/a'
    – Jimmy Obonyo Abor
    Apr 11, 2021 at 18:56
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This will copy everything, including dot files, and not including the target directory itself, to the target directory SUBDIR:

for i in `ls -a | grep -Ev '^(SUBDIR|\.\.?)$'`; do cp $i SUBDIR; done
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  • 2
    Fails for filenames that include spaces.
    – Dennis Williamson
    Aug 25, 2010 at 18:54
-1

This goes in say file dirCopy.sh



for i in `ls`
do
        if [ $i != "subDir" ]
        then
                `cp -r $i subDir`
        fi
done

run it as " sh dirCopy.sh " in your console

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  • 2
    No need for ls: for file in *. No need for backticks - use $(). No need for backticks (or $()) around the cp command (that will produce an error message).
    – Dennis Williamson
    Aug 25, 2010 at 18:56

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