How to cd to a directory that contains a space in its name?

Question

I have a directory called "Reader 0.5" in my Desktop on Mac Os X. When to access the directory in terminal, I am using below code:

cd /Users/niho/Desktop/Reader 0.5

but it throws:

No such file or directory

error.

How can I cd into that directory?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Either you put quotes around the directory name (cd "/Users/niho/Desktop/Reader 0.5") or you escape the directory name (/Users/niho/Desktop/Reader\ 0.5).

Answer 2

You can escape the space:

cd /Users/niho/Desktop/Reader\ 0.5

Answer 3

As others have mentioned, quoting the path or backslash-escaping the spaces will work.

In addition bash, the default shell on Mac OS X, supports command-line completion using the Tab key. So e.g. if you type:

cd /Users/niho/Desktop/Re

then press the Tab key, the shell will fill in the rest of the folder name (as long as there are no other folders on your Desktop starting with "Re"), and will take care of quoting the arguments to cd if there are spaces in the directory name it fills in.