Shell command: mv

mv renames files or directories (which can be interpreted as moving them, hence the abbreviated name of the command).

mv [OPTION]… [-T] SOURCE DEST mv [OPTION]… SOURCE… DIRECTORY mv [OPTION]… -t DIRECTORY SOURCE…

Options

	`--backup`	`[=CONTROL]`	make a backup of each existing destination file. The default suffix, if not set with `--suffix`, is `~`.
`-b`			like `--backup` but does not accept an argument
`-f`	`--force`		do not prompt before overwriting
`-i`	`--interactive`		prompt before overwrite
`-n`	`--no-clobber`		do not overwrite an existing file
	`--strip-trailing-slashes`		remove any trailing slashes from each `SOURCE` argument
`-S`	`--suffix`	`=SUFFIX`	override the usual backup suffix
`-t`	`--target-directory`	`=DIRECTORY`	move all `SOURCE` arguments into `DIRECTORY`
`-T`	`--no-target-directory`		treat `DEST` as a normal file
`-u`	`--update`		move only when the `SOURCE` file is newer than the destination file or when the destination file is missing
`-v`	`--verbose`		explain what is being done
`-Z`	`--context`		set SELinux security context of destination file to default type
	`--help`
	`--version`		Print version information

Rename files with special characters

find in combination with its -inum option allows to rename files with special character:

$ touch f\*1 f\*2 f\*3
$ ls -i1
468322 'f*1'
468374 'f*2'
468389 'f*3'
$ find . -inum 468374 -exec mv {} f-star-2 \;
$ ls -i1
468322 'f*1'
468389 'f*3'
468374 f-star-2

Moving dot files as well

mv src-dir/.[^.]* dest-dir

Shell command: mv

Options

Rename files with special characters

Moving dot files as well

See also