How to Copy Files with Duplicate Filenames and Rename Automatically

14.04files

On windows OS, when you copy a file into a directory that already has a file with that name, it asks you whether you want to:

copy the file and replace/overwrite the existing one
cancel copying the new file into the directory
copy the file, but rename it (as something like "filename – copy (1)")

When I do this in Ubuntu, I don't have that 3rd option (which is a lot of times a very useful option). Is there any way to be able to do that in Ubuntu?

Best Answer

Unfortunately Nautilus doesn't have that option.

Option 1: A different file manager

You could try another file manager like Dolphin.

(requires the Universe repository)

Option 2: Command-line

You can also use the command line program cp(1) with the backup option:

cp --backup -t DESTINATION SOURCE [SOURCE...]

This has the following effects which can be controlled with other options as described in the manual page of cp(1):

--backup[=CONTROL] ― make a backup of each existing destination file

-b ― like --backup but does not accept an argument

-S, --suffix=SUFFIX ― override the usual backup suffix

The backup suffix is ~, unless set with --suffix or SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX. The version control method may be selected via the --backup option or through the VERSION_CONTROL environment variable. Here are the values:

none, off: never make backups (even if --backup is given)

numbered, t: make numbered backups

existing, nil: numbered if numbered backups exist, simple otherwise

simple, never: always make simple backups

Example

cp --backup=existing --suffix=.orig -t ~/Videos ~/Music/*

This will copy all files in ~/Music to ~/Videos. If a file of the same name exists at the destination, it is renamed by appending .orig to its name as a backup. If a file with the same name as the backup exists, the backup is instead renamed by appending .1 and if that exists as well .2 and so forth. Only then is the source file copied to the destination.

If you want to copy files in subdirectories recursively use:

cp -R --backup=existing --suffix=.orig -t ~/Videos ~/Music

Related Solutions

Copy File to Clipboard Command Line – Command Line Equivalent of Copying File to Clipboard

When you press Ctrl-C over a file in the file manager, the file's contents IS NOT copied to the clipboard. A simple test: select a file in file manager, press Ctrl-C, open a text editor, press Ctrl-V. The result is not file's contents but its full path.

In reality the situation is a bit more complicated because you can't do the opposite - copy a list of filenames from a text editor and paste them into file manager.

To copy some data from command line to X11 clipboard you can use xclip command, which can be installed with

sudo apt-get install xclip

to copy contents of a file or output of some command to clipboard use

cat ./myfile.txt|xclip -i

the text can be then pasted somewhere using middle mouse button (this is called "primary selection buffer").

If you want to copy data to the "clipboard" selection, so it can be pasted into an application with Ctrl-V, you can do

cat ./myfile.txt|xclip -i -selection clipboard

To be able to copy files from the command line and paste them in a file manager, you need to specify a correct "target atom" so the file manager recognizes the data in the clipboard, and also provide the data in correct format - luckily, in case of copying files in a file manager it's just a list of absolute filenames, each on a new line, something which is easy to generate using find command:

find ${PWD} -name "*.pdf"| xclip -i -selection clipboard -t text/uri-list

(at least this works for me in KDE). Now you can wrap into a small script which you can call, say, cb:

#!/bin/sh
xclip -i -selection clipboard -t text/uri-list

then you put it in ~/bin, set executable bit on it and use it like this:

find ${PWD} -name "*.txt"| cb

Nice, isn't it?

Ubuntu – Copy dialogue freezes at 0 seconds forever when copying to a USB flash drive

So for me it was a simple question of waiting, letting it hang on '0 seconds left' until it eventually finished and changed to 'copied'. Looks like the file manager indicator can get pretty inaccurate and the whole workings were also explained at Gnome, nautilus copy files to USB stops at 100% or near.