Create, Copy, Move, and Delete Files and Folders in Linux Ubuntu

In this Linux tutorial for robotics, robot operating system, control, and machine learning, we explain how to copy, move, rename, and delete files and folders in Linux Ubuntu. The YouTube tutorial is given below.

Create and Erase Folders and Files in Linux Ubuntu

First of all, open a new terminal, and type

cd ~

To navigate to the home folder. The tilde “~” symbol in Linux Ubuntu is the symbol for the home folder. To create a new directory (folder) called “dir1”, use the command mkdir

mkdir dir1

We can create several directories at the same time, by using the option -p with the command mkdir

mkdir -p dir2/sub_dir1

This command will create a parent directory called “dir2” and inside it will create a child directory called “sub_dir1”. To navigate to the newly created folder, we need to type

cd dir1

To go back to the parent folder, we need to type

cd .. 

To navigate directly to the folder sub_dir1, we need to type the absolute path

cd ~/dir2/sub_dir1

To go back to the home folder, we can type

cd ~

To erase the folder and all the subfolders, we need to type

rm -r ~/dir2

However, sometimes it is a good idea to use rm with an additional option -v. This option will print what has been erased. The option -v stands for verbose. Let us illustrate this by creating folders and by erasing them

mkdir -p ~/dir2/dir2_sub

Let us create an empty file in the folder dir2

touch ~/dir2/file2 

Let us list the content of the folder dir2

ls -la ~/dir2

total 12
drwxr-xr-x  3 ahaber ahaber 4096 Oct 31 12:11 .
drwxr-x--- 18 ahaber ahaber 4096 Oct 31 12:11 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 ahaber ahaber 4096 Oct 31 12:11 dir2_sub
-rw-r--r--  1 ahaber ahaber    0 Oct 31 12:11 file2

Then, let us erase with the option -rv

rm -rv dir2

The output while erasing is now verbose:

removed 'dir2/file2'
removed directory 'dir2/dir2_sub'
removed directory 'dir2

Next, we explain how to create and erase files. Let us create and navigate to a new folder:

mkdir ~/dir10
cd ~/dir10

We can easily create an empty file by using the command touch:

touch file1

Let us add some text to this file by using the echo command and the redirection operator “>”

echo First line of the file > file1

To show the content of the file, simply type

cat file1 

If we again use the command echo with the redirected output, the content of the file will be erased and a new line will be written. To see this, type this

echo New line > file1
cat file1

We can see that the content of the file has been erased. Let us now explain how to append the content of the file by using the echo command. First let us again add the first line

echo First line of the file > file1

Then, to append the content of the file, we need to use the operator “>>”. To append the file, type this

echo Second line of the file >> file1

To show the content of the file, simply type

cat file1 

you will get these two lines as the output:

First line of the file
Second line of the file

To erase a single file, we can use several commands. Usually, I use the command rm

rm file1

To erase several files, let us first create them. Let us create three files. We can do that by using a single touch command

touch file2 file3 file4

To erase these files, type

rm *

Where the star symbol “*” (asterisk) means that we want to erase all the files in the current folder. If you again type

ls -la

You will see that the folder is empty. However, the operator * will not erase the hidden files. In Linux, the hidden files start with a period (dot symbol) “.”. That is, you can identify the hidden files simply by checking if they start with a dot symbol. To explain how to erase both normal and hidden files let us create a mix of normal and hidden files. To do that type

touch file1 .file2 file3 .file4

Let us list the content of the current folder:

ls -la

Type now

rm *
ls -la 

You will get

drwxr-xr-x  2 ahaber ahaber 4096 Oct 31 12:26 .
drwxr-x--- 17 ahaber ahaber 4096 Oct 31 12:12 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 ahaber ahaber    0 Oct 31 12:25 .file2
-rw-r--r--  1 ahaber ahaber    0 Oct 31 12:25 .file4

This means that only the files that are not hidden are erased.  Let us create again the files

touch file1 file3
ls -la 

Then, to erase all files, including the hidden files, we need to type this

rm -v {*,.*}

Let us now erase all the created files and folders

cd ~
rm -r ~/dir10
rm -r ~/dir1

Copy, Move, and Rename Files and Folders in Linux Ubuntu

Next, we explain how to copy, move, and rename files and folders. In the Linux and Unix worlds, moving and renaming files and folders are the same thing. To rename the file, let us create a new folder in the home folder and let us navigate to this new folder:

cd ~
mkdir dir3
cd dir3

Let us create a new file and let us add a content to that file:

touch file2 
echo New Line  > file2

Let us rename the file. To rename file2 as file3, we need to type

mv file2 file3

The first input parameter is the name of the original file, and the second input parameter is the new name.

Let us make sure that the file is renamed

ls -la
cat file3

Next, we explain how to move the file from one folder to another. Let us create a new folder in the home folder called dir4. In the current folder, we can type

mkdir ~/dir4

Where we specified the absolute path of the new folder. To move the file to the new folder, we need to type

mv file3 ~/dir4

The first input parameter is the name of the file we want to move and the second input parameter is the path of the destination folder.

Let us now make sure that the file is moved. In the current folder type

ls -la 

and you will see that the file does not exist. Then, type

ls -la ~/dir4

to list the content of the folder dir4. The content is

Next, let us erase the two folders

cd ~
rm -r ~/dir3
rm -r ~/dir4

Let us learn how to move one folder to another. To do that, let us go to the home folder and create two folders

cd ~
mkdir folder1
mkdir folder2

Let us create files in folder1:

touch ~/folder1/file1.txt ~/folder1/file2.txt

Let us list the content

ls -la ~/folder1

Let us move the folder folder1 to folder2

mv ~/folder1 ~/folder2

Let us list the content of the folder2

ls -la ~/folder2

Let us list the content of the folder1 inside of the folder2

ls -la ~/folder2/folder1

Next, let us create two sub folders inside of the folder2

mkdir ~/folder2/sub_folder2
mkdir ~/folder2/sub_folder3

Let us now move the content of the folder folder2 to the new folder folder3

mkdir ~/folder3
mv ~/folder2/*  folder3

Let us list the content

ls -la ~/folder2

ls -la ~/folder3

Let us erase the existing folders

cd ~
rm -rv ~/folder2
rm -rv ~/folder3

To copy the files and folders, we use the command cp. This command is similar to the move command mv. Let us explain how to use this command. Let us create a new folder

mkdir ~/dir5
mkdir ~/dir6

Create files in the folder ~/dir5

touch ~/dir5/file1.txt ~/dir5/file2.txt ~/dir5/file3.txt

Let us copy the file

cp ~/dir5/file1.txt ~/dir6

Let us confirm

ls -la ~/dir5
ls -la ~/dir6

Next, let us learn how to copy the folder. To do that, we need to use the option -r

cp -r ~/dir5 ~/dir6

Finally, let us clean up everything:

cd ~
rm -r ~/dir5
rm -r ~/dir6