Unix and Linux Stack Exchange
Unix and Linux Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [file-management]

100 questions
408
votes
8 answers

Remove all files/directories except for one file

I have a directory containing a large number of files. I want to delete all files except for file.txt . How do I do this? There are too many files to remove the unwanted ones individually and their names are too diverse to use * to remove them all…
Kantura
  • 4,555
  • 4
  • 14
  • 12
133
votes
4 answers

How do you do a dry run of rm to see what files will be deleted?

I want to see what files will be deleted when performing an rm in linux. Most commands seem to have a dry run option to show just such information, but I can't seem to find such an option for rm. Is this even possible?
Cory Klein
  • 18,391
  • 26
  • 81
  • 93
25
votes
4 answers

Disable "Recently used" in GTK file/directory selector

Can I completely disable "Recently Used" feature in GTK's file / directory selector? Sometimes programs default to this but since it's not useful in my work-flow and with the way I organize my files, it only adds confusion: I usually just expect…
Alois Mahdal
  • 4,330
  • 11
  • 40
  • 62
22
votes
4 answers

Where should small utility programs store their preferences?

I have several utility programs that do not have their own directory and are just a single executable. Typically I put the binary in /usr/local/bin. A problem I have is how to manage preference settings. One idea is to use environment variables and…
Tyler Durden
  • 5,411
  • 16
  • 57
  • 96
18
votes
1 answer

How can I sync two local directories?

I have two backup directories (dir1 and 2) on two different (local) HDDs and I want to create one of them. How can I really sync their contents so that both directories will have the same contents?
Weylyn Savan
  • 553
  • 3
  • 8
  • 18
15
votes
6 answers

How to de-unzip, de-tar -xvf -- de-unarchive in a messy folder?

Usually, I unarchive things by $ mkdir newFolder; $ mv *.zip newFolder; $ cd newFolder; $unzip *.zip but sometimes I get lazy and just do in an arbitrary folder $ unzip *.zip so time-to-time messing up with other content. I will list here some…
user2362
14
votes
4 answers

How to sort files by part of the filename?

Given the files below: ABC38388.SC01.StatueGrade_MKP ABC38388.SC02.Statue_GKP DEF38389.SC03.Statue_HKP XYZ38390.SC00.Statue_WKP How can I list them all based on the SC value, like…
MRKR
  • 161
  • 1
  • 2
  • 5
13
votes
2 answers

how to speed up tar, just build a package without compression

I have a large folder, 2TB, with 1000000 files on a Linux machine. I want to build a package with tar. I do not care about the size of the tar file, so I do not need to compress the data. How can I speed tar up? It takes me an hour to build a…
Guo Yong
  • 131
  • 1
  • 5
10
votes
4 answers

How to disable trash can in Thunar/XFCE?

I found myself always holding Shift when I delete a file with Thunar (the XFCE file manager). When I was using Windows I was always disabling "recycle bin" immediately after installation. I've looked for similar option in Thunar settings but had no…
Ivan
  • 17,368
  • 35
  • 93
  • 118
10
votes
5 answers

Alternative command for coloured viewing the size of all files and folders

Is there a nice alternative for this? I always use du -shc * to check the size of all files and folders in the current directory. But it would be nice to have a colored and nicely formatted view (for example like dfc for viewing the sizes of…
rubo77
  • 27,777
  • 43
  • 130
  • 199
9
votes
4 answers

Search and Delete duplicate files with different names

I have a large music collection stored on my hard drive; and browsing through it, I found that I have a lot of duplicate files in some album directories. Usually the duplicates exist alongside the original in the same directory. Usually the format…
Cestarian
  • 1,991
  • 5
  • 26
  • 45
8
votes
4 answers

Copy/rename multiple files using regular expression (shell script)

I have a collection of files matching a pattern such as 'assignment02.cc', 'assignment02.h', 'assignment02.txt', etc. I would like to copy/rename these files into 'assignment03.cc', 'assignment03.h', 'assignment03.txt', and so on. I suspect this…
user4632
8
votes
1 answer

Git - handle symlink as if it was a file

Is there a way to make git handle a symlink as if it was a file. If I just normally add a symlink like git add symlink, git just stores/controlls the path to the file, not the linked file. Is it possible to make git handle a symlink as if it was the…
nath
  • 5,430
  • 9
  • 45
  • 87
8
votes
3 answers

How to delete old backups based on a date in file name?

I have a daily backups named like this: yyyymmddhhmm.zip // pattern 201503200100.zip // backup from 20. 3. 2015 1:00 I'm trying to create a script that deletes all backups older than 3 days. The script should be also able to delete all other files…
Joudicek Jouda
  • 271
  • 2
  • 3
  • 7
8
votes
4 answers

How to move all files inside present subfolders up here

I have 50 folders with some subfolders too, with more than 1000 audio files total. I need to remove all subfolders and put all files in present level. Tried mv */* ./ but it complaints: argument list too long
Pedro Gonzalez
  • 231
  • 1
  • 2
  • 4
1
2 3 4 5 6 7