Ubuntu – A script for moving files from subdirs to parent dir

bashcommand linescripts

I am looking for a script for moving files from subdirs to the parent directory

My folder structure looks like this.

Inside of a folder A I have a lot of folders named 1,2,3,4,5…
All these folders contain 2 more folders named B and C.
B and C contain files that I want to move one level up, then delete folders B and C.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me with this script

Best Answer

You can use:

find test/*/* -type d | xargs -n1  sh -c 'echo mv -b ${0}/* "$( dirname ${0})" ";" rm -rvf ${0} '

It will just print Output on screen as below :

mv -b test/1/B/file1 test/1/B/file2 test/1/B/file3 test/1 ; rm -rvf test/1/B
mv -b test/1/C/file1 test/1/C/file2 test/1/C/file3 test/1 ; rm -rvf test/1/C
mv -b test/2/B/file1 test/2/B/file2 test/2/B/file3 test/2 ; rm -rvf test/2/B
mv -b test/2/C/file1 test/2/C/file2 test/2/C/file3 test/2 ; rm -rvf test/2/C
mv -b test/3/B/file1 test/3/B/file2 test/3/B/file3 test/3 ; rm -rvf test/3/B
mv -b test/3/C/file1 test/3/C/file2 test/3/C/file3 test/3 ; rm -rvf test/3/C
mv -b test/4/B/file1 test/4/B/file2 test/4/B/file3 test/4 ; rm -rvf test/4/B
mv -b test/4/C/file1 test/4/C/file2 test/4/C/file3 test/4 ; rm -rvf test/4/C
mv -b test/5/B/file1 test/5/B/file2 test/5/B/file3 test/5 ; rm -rvf test/5/B
mv -b test/5/C/file1 test/5/C/file2 test/5/C/file3 test/5 ; rm -rvf test/5/C

If output looks OK then you can simply append | sh at the end of that command, then it will run command which is shows in output.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Script for “extracting” subfolders into parent folder

The simplest and cleanest way in my opinion would be to use this command:

find . -type f -exec mv --backup=numbered {} . \; && find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -exec rm -r {} +

find command #1:

.: searches in the current working directory;
-type f: searches for files;
-exec [...]: executes either a command for each result (using {} [...] \;) or a command for all the results (using {} +);
mv --backup=numbered . \;: moves each result in the current working directory, creating a backup of files with the same filename already in the current working directory;

find command #2:

.: searches in the current working directory;
-maxdepth 1: searches only in the first level of the target directory hierarchy;
-type d: searches for directories;
-exec [...]: executes either a command for each result (using {} [...] \;) or a command for all the results (using {} +);
rm -r {} +: deletes each result;

Test on a test directory hierarchy:

user@debian ~/tmp % tree -a
.
├── 1
│   ├── file1
│   ├── file2
│   ├── file3
│   └── .hidden
├── 2
│   ├── file1
│   ├── file2
│   ├── file3
│   └── .hidden
└── 3
    ├── file1
    ├── file2
    ├── file3
    └── .hidden

3 directories, 12 files
user@debian ~/tmp % find . -type f -exec mv --backup=numbered {} . \; && find . -type d -exec rm -r {} +
rm: refusing to remove "." or ".." directory: skipping "."
user@debian ~/tmp % tree -a
.
├── file1
├── file1.~1~
├── file1.~2~
├── file2
├── file2.~1~
├── file2.~2~
├── file3
├── file3.~1~
├── file3.~2~
├── .hidden
├── .hidden.~1~
└── .hidden.~2~

0 directories, 12 files

Ubuntu – How to move some files to their parent directory

Try:

find . -path "*/flac/*" -name '*.mp3' -execdir mv -t ../ {} +

How it works

find .

Start a find command working on the current directory.
-path "*/flac/*"

Select only files with flac in their path
-name '*.mp3'

Select only files with extension .mp3.
-execdir mv -t ../ {} +

For any files found run the mv command from the directory that the file is in and move the file to the parent directory.

In addition to making this particular task easy, the option -execdir is also more secure than than the traditional -exec option.

Simplification

find . -path "*/flac/*.mp3" -execdir mv -t ../ {} +