Working with files

How do I make files and folders?

mkdir projects             # make a folder
mkdir -p projects/a/b/c    # make a whole chain of folders at once
touch notes.txt            # make an empty file

touch updates a file’s date, and if the file doesn’t exist, it creates an empty one (this is a very popular use).

How do I see what’s in a file?

cat notes.txt     # print the whole file
less notes.txt    # scroll through a long file (q to quit)
head notes.txt    # first 10 lines
tail notes.txt    # last 10 lines

How do I copy and move files?

cp notes.txt backup.txt           # copy a file
cp -r projects projects-backup    # copy a folder (-r means "and everything inside")
mv notes.txt Documents/           # move a file into a folder
mv backup.txt old-notes.txt       # rename a file

There’s no separate rename command. Renaming is just moving a file to a new name in the same place.

How do I delete files?

rm old-notes.txt       # delete a file
rmdir empty-folder     # delete an empty folder
rm -r projects-backup  # delete a folder and everything in it

rm has no trash bin

Files deleted with rm don’t go to the trash, and rm doesn’t confirm so be extra careful with rm -r and * (explained below). While you’re learning, use rm -i, which asks before deleting each file.

Wildcards

* matches any text. The shell replaces it with every matching file name before running the command:

ls *.png           # every file ending in .png
cp *.jpg backup/   # copy every .jpg into backup/

This is called a glob.

Quick check: what does mv *.txt notes/ do?

It moves every file ending in .txt (in the folder you’re in) into the notes folder.