How to copy a folder with files to another folder in Linux?

The option you’re looking for is -R.

cp -R path_to_source path_to_destination/

• If destination doesn’t exist, it will be created.
• -R means copy directories recursively. You can also use -r since it’s case-insensitive.
• To copy everything inside the source folder (symlinks, hidden files) without copying the source folder itself use -a flag along with trailing /. in the source :

cp -a path_to_source/. path_to_destination/

How to copy a folder with files to another folder in Linux?

You are looking for the cp command. You need to change directories so that you are outside of the directory you are trying to copy.

If the directory you’re copying is called dir1 and you want to copy it to your /home/Pictures folder:

cp -r dir1/ ~/Pictures/

Linux is case-sensitive and also needs the / after each directory to know that it isn’t a file. ~ is a special character in the terminal that automatically evaluates to the current user’s home directory. If you need to know what directory you are in, use the command pwd.

When you don’t know how to use a Linux command, there is a manual page that you can refer to by typing:

man [insert command here]

at a terminal prompt.

Also, to auto complete long file paths when typing in the terminal, you can hit Tab after you’ve started typing the path and you will either be presented with choices, or it will insert the remaining part of the path.

There is an important distinction between Linux and Unix in the answer because for Linux (GNU and BusyBox) -R, -r, and --recursive are all equivalent. For portability, i.e. POSIX compliance, you would want to use -R because of some implementation-dependent differences with -r. It’s important to read the man pages to know any idiosyncrasies that may arise (this is a good use case to show why POSIX standards are useful).

Answer #3:

Use:

$ cp -R SRCFOLDER DESTFOLDER/

Answer #4:

You can copy the content of a folder /source to another existing folder /dest with the command

cp -a /source/. /dest/

The -a option is an improved recursive option, that preserve all file attributes, and also preserve symlinks.

The . at end of the source path is a specific cp syntax that allow to copy all files and folders, included hidden ones.

How to copy the contents of a folder to another folder in a different directory using terminal?

Lets say you have a folder called folder1 in your ~, inside folder1 is 1 file called file1 and 2 folders called sub1 and sub2 each with other files and folders inside them.

To copy all the contents of ~/folder1 to ~/new_folder1 you would use

cp -r ~/folder1/. ~/new_folder1

new_folder1 would then contain all the files and folders from folder1.

cp is the command to copy using a terminal, -r makes it recursively (so, current directory + further directories inside current) ~/folder1 is the origin folder, ~/new_folder1 is the destination folder for the files/folders inside the origin.

Answer #5:

An alternate is rsync:

rsync -a source/ destination

The advantages of rsync are:

1. After the initial sync, it will then copy only the files that have changed.
2. You can use it over a network, convenient for files in $HOME, especially config files.

Answer #6:

Simple example.

Copy the directory dir_1 and its contents (files) into directory dir_2:

cp -r ./dir_1 ./dir_2
# or
cp -r ./dir_1/ ./dir_2/
# Results in: ./dir_2/dir_1/_files_

Copy only the contents (files) of dir_1 into directory dir_2:

cp -r ./dir_1/. ./dir_2
# or
cp -r ./dir_1/. ./dir_2/
# Results in: ./dir_2/_files_

_files_ is a placeholder for the actual files located in the directory.

Answer #7:

I like this command

rsync -av --progress ~/code/project-source/. ~/code/project-destination --exclude .git --exclude node_modules

Some of the commonly used options in rsync command are listed below:

• -v, –verbose: Verbose output
• -q, –quiet: suppress message output
• -a, –archive: archive files and directory while synchronizing ( -an equal to following options -rlptgoD)
• -r, –recursive: sync files and directories recursively
• -b, –backup: take the backup during synchronization
• -u, –update: don’t copy the files from source to destination if destination files are newer
• -l, –links: copy symlinks as symlinks during the sync
• -n, –dry-run: perform a trial run without synchronization
• -e, –rsh=COMMAND: mention the remote shell to use in rsync
• -z, –compress: compress file data during the transfer
• -h, –human-readable: display the output numbers in a human-readable format
• –progress: show the sync progress during transfer

Answer #8:

If there are two folders: (with write permission)

drwxr-xr-x 4 vimal vimal  4096 Sep  9 12:17 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root  root   4096 Aug 18 14:35 ..
drwxrwxrwx 6 vimal vimal  4096 Sep  9 12:15 DATA
drwxrwxrwx 7 vimal vimal  4096 Sep  9 12:15 PORTAL

If you are inside the folder called PORTAL where you want to copy all content of another folder say DATA at the same level then you will do

vimal@vimal-D3H:/var/www/html/PORTAL$ cp -a ../DATA/. .

You have to notice 2 dots. Last dot says copy here in present folder

and

one following /DATA/. says that all the CONTENTS inside DATA folder to be copied, and not the DATA folder itself.

If you remove this trailing “.” from /DATA/

then whole DATA folder will be copied inside PORTAL(from where you are coping).

Hope you learned something from this post.

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