Easy Bulk File Operations on Linux

26 min read

Simple Batch Operations on Files in Linux

  1. Finding Files

The find command can be used to locate files within the file system.

# Find all .txt files in the current directory and its subdirectories
find . -name "*.txt"
  1. Copying Files

The cp command is used to copy files.

# Copy all .txt files in the current directory to the destination directory
cp *.txt /path/to/destination/
  1. Moving or Renaming Files

The mv command can be used to move or rename files.

# Move all .txt files in the current directory to the destination directory
mv *.txt /path/to/destination/
  1. Deleting Files

The rm command is used to delete files.

# Delete all .txt files in the current directory
rm *.txt
  1. Modifying File Permissions

The chmod command is used to modify file permissions.

# Add read and write permissions to all .txt files in the current directory
chmod +rw *.txt
  1. Changing File Owner

The chown command is used to change the owner of files.

# Change the owner of all .txt files in the current directory to username
chown username *.txt
  1. Batch Renaming Files

The rename command can be used to batch rename files.

# Change the extension of all .txt files in the current directory to .md
rename 's/\.txt$/.md/' *.txt
  1. Batch Creating Directories

The mkdir command is used to create directories.

# Create directories corresponding to the names of all .txt files in the current directory
mkdir -p $(for file in *.txt; do echo "${file%.txt}"; done)
  1. Batch Archiving Files

The tar command is used to archive files.

# Archive all .txt files in the current directory into a compressed file named archive.tar.gz
tar -czvf archive.tar.gz *.txt
  1. Batch Unarchiving Files

The tar command can also be used to unarchive files.

# Unarchive the compressed file named archive.tar.gz
tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz

These commands form the basis for performing batch operations on files in a Linux system. Depending on your specific needs, you may need to modify these commands accordingly. Always ensure that the commands are correct before executing them, especially when deleting or modifying files, to avoid data loss.