How To Rename A File In Linux

Shorter post today – I wanted to share how to rename a file in Linux.

This post is also on Medium!

Introduction

Renaming files in Linux isn’t really a thing. You don’t directly rename a file like you do in Windows.

Instead, you move the file and simply provide a new name.

How To Rename A File In Linux

So to rename a file in Linux, you can use the move (mv) command. You can see an example of this below:

mv /dir/old-filename.txt /dir/new-filename.txt

That’s it!

How To Rename A File In Linux - file mv

How To Rename A Dir In Linux

If you want to know how to rename a directory in Linux – you can use the below example:

mv /dir/old-dir /dir/new-dir

Since we are still using the mv command, you can use the same options below.

How To Rename A Dir In Linux

Move Command Options

The move command also has a number of options – I will leave these below:

  • -i : This stands for interactive and it is used to prompt the user prior to overwriting the existing file
  • -u : This stands for update and it’s used to only move the file if the source is newer than the destination or if the destination file is missing
  • -v : This is the verbose option and it’s used to display the file names as they are moved
  • -n : This stands for no clobber and it prevents an existing file from being overwritten

FAQ

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