copying files in terminal

[JustinJS]

What I am trying to do is extract all mine mp3 files that are in subfolders into one main folder. Can anyone help me i cannot remember how to do this in terminal

[mali2297]

Say that you want to copy the mp3 files in 'subfolder1' and 'subfolder2' to 'destinationfolder'. Then type

cp subfolder1/*.mp3 subfolder2/*.mp3 destinationfolder

If you want to see what cp does, use the -v flag, like

cp -v subfolder1/*.mp3 subfolder2/*.mp3 destinationfolder

[sisco311]

What I am trying to do is extract all mine mp3 files that are in subfolders into one main folder. Can anyone help me i cannot remember how to do this in terminal

find /path/to/mp3s -name "*.mp3" -exec cp {} /path/to/destination/dir \;

[RequinB4]

find /path/to/mp3s -name "*.mp3" -exec cp {} /path/to/destination/dir \;

Is find recursive?

Edit: cp has a recursive option (-R) so i'm not sure the usefulness of using this command over

cp -R *.mp3 /destination/folder

[donkyhotay]

'cp' is the command you want to use to copy in the CLI. If you are ever uncertain on how to use a specific command you can read the manual by typing 'man' then the command name. For example

man cp

will give you information on using the cp command. Very useful when you can't remember things like 'whats the option to copy folder recursively?' and other things like that.

[sisco311]

Is find recursive?

Yes.

find /path/to/mp3 -name "*.mp3" = find all *.mp3 in /path/to/mp3 and sub-folders

-exec cp {} /path/to/destination/dir \; = copy the files to /path/to/destination/dir

e.g.

find ~/music -name "*.mp3" -exec cp {} ~/allmp3 \;

~/music/0.mp3
~/music/band1/1.mp3
~/music/band1/2.mp3
~/music/band2/album1/3.mp3
~/music/band2/album1/4.mp3
~/music/band2/album2/5.mp3
~/music/band2/album2/6.mp3

-->

~/allmp3/0.mp3
~/allmp3/1.mp3
~/allmp3/2.mp3
~/allmp3/3.mp3
~/allmp3/4.mp3
~/allmp3/5.mp3
~/allmp3/6.mp3

[snova]

Edit: cp has a recursive option (-R) so i'm not sure the usefulness of using this command over

cp -R *.mp3 /destination/folder

No, because globbing is done by the shell (cp never sees '*.mp3', it gets a list of files). -R just makes it copy subdirectories.