How can I move files by type recursively from a directory and its sub-directories to another directory?

Question

What would be a good way to move a file type from a directory and all of its sub-directories?

Like "move all *.ogg in /thisdir recursively to /somedir". I tried a couple of things; my best effort was (still not that great):

find /thisdir -type f -name '*.ogg' -exec mv /somedir {} \;

It returned on each line before each file name,

mv: cannot overwrite non-directory `/thisdir/*.ogg' with directory `/somedir'

Solution 1

you can use find with xargs for this

find /thisdir -type f -name "*.ogg" -print0 | xargs -0 -Imysongs mv -i mysongs /somedir

The -I in the above command tells xargs what replacement string you want to use (otherwise it adds the arguments to the end of the command).

OR
In your command just try to move '{}' after mv command.

find /thisdir -type f -name '*.ogg' -exec mv -i {} /somedir \;

Solution 2

In zsh or bash 4, to gather all *.ogg files into /somedir:

mv /thisdir/**/*.ogg /somedir

If you wanted to reproduce the directory hierarchy: (warning, typed directly into the browser)

rsync -a --prune-empty-dirs --include='*/' --include='*.ogg' --exclude='*' /thisdir /somedir

Solution 3

find /thisdir -type f -name "*.ogg" -exec mv {} /somedir \;

You kinda interchanged the arguments for mv

Comments

[Hemant]

please don't forget to take backup before trying above commands :-).

[maxschlepzig]

Btw, for the first -print0 for find and -0 for xargs should be used as possible, to avoid whitespace in filename problems.

[Hemant]

@maxschlepzig: good point. I will edit.

[Gilles 'SO- stop being evil']

I strongly suggest using mv -i here, so you don't risk overwriting files if something unexpected happens.

[Hemant]

@Gilles: thanks :). This is the reason I love stackexchange. Not only we help others but learn also :). one more edit.

[Noldorin]

with mv from gnu core utils you can use mv -t <targetdir> and + instead of \;

[Mark]

beyond convenient in bash

[James]

WARNING!!! This does not keep the recursive folder structure at the destination!