Move all files except one

Question

How can I move all files except one? I am looking for something like:

'mv ~/Linux/Old/!Tux.png ~/Linux/New/'

where I move old stuff to new stuff -folder except Tux.png. !-sign represents a negation. Is there some tool for the job?

Answer 1

Put the following to your .bashrc

shopt -s extglob

It extends regexes. You can then move all files except one by

mv !(fileOne) ~/path/newFolder

Exceptions in relation to other commands

Note that, in copying directories, the forward-flash cannot be used in the name as noticed in the thread Why extglob except breaking except condition?:

cp -r !(Backups.backupdb) /home/masi/Documents/

so Backups.backupdb/ is wrong here before the negation and I would not use it neither in moving directories because of the risk of using wrongly then globs with other commands and possible other exceptions.

Answer 2

If you use bash and have the extglob shell option set (which is usually the case):

mv ~/Linux/Old/!(Tux.png) ~/Linux/New/

Answer 3

I would go with the traditional find & xargs way:

find ~/Linux/Old -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -not -name Tux.png -print0 | 
    xargs -0 mv -t ~/Linux/New

-maxdepth 1 makes it not search recursively. If you only care about files, you can say -type f. -mindepth 1 makes it not include the ~/Linux/Old path itself into the result. Works with any filenames, including with those that contain embedded newlines.

One comment notes that the mv -t option is a probably GNU extension. For systems that don't have it

find ~/Linux/Old -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -not -name Tux.png \
    -exec mv '{}' ~/Linux/New \;

Answer 4

A quick way would be to modify the tux filename so that your move command will not match.

For example:

mv Tux.png .Tux.png

mv * ~/somefolder

mv .Tux.png Tux.png

Answer 5

I think the easiest way to do is with backticks

mv `ls -1 ~/Linux/Old/ | grep -v Tux.png` ~/Linux/New/

Edit:

Use backslash with ls instead to prevent using it with alias, i.e. mostly ls is aliased as ls --color.

mv `\ls -1 ~/Linux/Old/ | grep -v Tux.png` ~/Linux/New/

Thanks @Arnold Roa

Answer 6

For bash, sth answer is correct. Here is the zsh (my shell of choice) syntax:

mv ~/Linux/Old/^Tux.png ~/Linux/New/

Requires EXTENDED_GLOB shell option to be set.

Answer 7

I find this to be a bit safer and easier to rely on for simple moves that exclude certain files or directories.

ls -1 | grep -v ^$EXCLUDE | xargs -I{} mv {} $TARGET

Answer 8

The following is not a 100% guaranteed method, and should not at all be attempted for scripting. But some times it is good enough for quick interactive shell usage. A file file glob like

[abc]*

(which will match all files with names starting with a, b or c) can be negated by inserting a "^" character first, i.e.

[^abc]*

I sometimes use this for not matching the "lost+found" directory, like for instance:

mv /mnt/usbdisk/[^l]* /home/user/stuff/.

Of course if there are other files starting with l I have to process those afterwards.

Answer 9

mv `find Linux/Old '!' -type d | fgrep -v Tux.png` Linux/New

The find command lists all regular files and the fgrep command filters out any Tux.png. The backticks tell mv to move the resulting file list.

Answer 10

ls ~/Linux/Old/ | grep -v Tux.png | xargs -i {} mv ~/Linux/New/'

Answer 11

How about:

mv $(echo * | sed s:Tux.png::g) ~/Linux/New/

You have to be in the folder though.

Answer 12

One can skip grep like this:

ls ~/Linux/Old/ -QI Tux.png | xargs -I{} mv ~/Linux/Old/{} ~/Linux/New/

Answer 13

How about you move everything in the folder and then just move Tux.png back?

I can't think of any shell syntax to say "everything except ..." offhand.