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Muhammad Nabeel
Network and System Administrator

Copy file/folder Using cp Command in Linux

cp (copy) is a command in various Unix and Unix-like operating systems for copying files and directories. The command has three principal modes of operation, copying a file to another file, one or more files to a directory, or for copying entire directories to another directory.

Copy a file

First of all create a file “demo.txt” and a directory “record” using below commands.

touch demo.txt
mkdir record
ls

Now, in the below command we will copy a file “demo.txt” to the “record” directory.

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cp demo.txt record

Then, use following command to verify demo.txt file is copied into record directory.

ls record

Copy multiple files

So, in this example we will copy multiple files into a directory. let say we have many files with .txt extension and we want all them to copy in a directory “record” simply use following command.

cp *.txt record
ls record

* means all files matching with .txt extension.

Copy a Directory

Now we will copy a directory into another directory.
Note: Always use -R (capital R) option whenever you copy a directory so that all of data placed in it will also be copied.

SO, We are copying demo directory to the record directory.

ls
cp -R demo record

Then, verify demo directory is copied into record directory.

ls record

You can explore more commands of cp by reading manual using command “man cp

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