Copying files using the cp command - Bash

Posted 11 Apr. 2021 | 2 min read.

This article covers how to use the bash command cp.

If you want to copy files from one directory into another, you can use the cp command.

Copy to a different directory

The simplest way to call it is to specify the source path, and the new directory:

cp <source-path> <destination-directory>

For instance, to copy a file called test.txt over to a testFolder directory in the same folder, you would use:

cp test.txt ./testFolder/

Copy and rename

If you specify a name for the file in the destination, you can also change the name at the same time.

For instance:

cp test.txt ./testFolder/testClone.txt

This will copy the test.txt file into the testFolder directory, and rename it as testClone.txt.

Copy multiple files

Often, you will want to copy multiple files over to a single directory.

To do this, simply supply the list of sources (space-separated) before the destination directory.

For example:

cp test1.txt test2.txt test3.txt ./testFolder/

Copying all files within a directory

If you wish to copy all files within a directory to a new directory, you can use the * wildcard:

# Get all files and copy them to the testFolder
cp * ./testFolder/

Similarly, if we only wish to move files with a specific extension, or filename structure, we could specify the * wildcard as part of the source name:

# Get all text files and copy them to the testFolder
cp *.txt ./testFolder/

Note that this will not copy directories! To do so, you need to add the recursive option -R.

Copy all files and folders within a directory

To copy all files and folders within a directory, you need to specify the recursive option -R, which will tell the cp command to copy all files in all subdirectories also:

# Get all files and folders and copy them to the testFolder
cp -R * ./testFolder/

Preserving the file attributes

All files will have file attributes (such as modified date/time) associated with them.

When using the cp command, these attributes get replaced, unless you use the -p option:

cp -p test.txt ./testFolder/test.txt

The -p option will force the cp command to preserve the following attributes:

  • Modified date & time
  • Access time
  • File flags
  • File mode
  • User ID
  • Group ID
  • Access Control Lists
  • Extended Attributes
Bash