Ubuntu – How to show only hidden files in Terminal

command linels

I have a directory that contains thousands of files, some of them are hidden.

The command ls -a list all files, including hidden ones, but I need just to list hidden files.

What command should I use?

Best Answer

The command :

ls -ld .?*

Will only list hidden files .

Explain :

 -l     use a long listing format

 -d, --directory
              list  directory entries instead of contents, and do not derefer‐
              ence symbolic links

.?* will only state hidden files

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to have `ll` command not display hidden files

Open the file .bashrc in your home directory. The should be an entry which looks like:

alias ll='ls -la'

Remove the last a, save the file and open a new shell. Now ll should work as want you. If you do not find the line, you can add it to your .bashrc:

alias ll='ls -l'

Ubuntu – How to get mv (or the * wildcard) to move hidden files

You can do this :

shopt -s dotglob
mv /tmp/home/rcook/* /home/rcook/

You can put

shopt -s dotglob

in your ~/.bashrc if you want it to be the default.

See http://mywiki.wooledge.org/glob

Another approach to copy the dot files:

mv /tmp/home/rcook/.[!.]* /home/rcook/

Don't use the pattern ..* as it matches .. (pointer to the parent directory). If there are files whose name begin with two dots (..something), also use the pattern ..?*.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to have `ll` command not display hidden files

Ubuntu – How to get mv (or the * wildcard) to move hidden files

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