Linux how to copy but not overwrite?

Question

I want to cp a directory but I do not want to overwrite any existing files even it they are older than the copied files. And I want to do it completely noninteractive as this will be a part of a Crontab Bash script. Any ideas?

Solution 1

Taken from the man page:

-n, --no-clobber
              do not overwrite an existing file (overrides a previous -i option)

Example:

cp -n myoldfile.txt mycopiedfile.txt

Solution 2

Consider using rsync.

rsync -a -v --ignore-existing src dst

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As per comments rsync -a -v src dst is not correct because it will update existing files.

Solution 3

cp -n

Is what you want. See the man page.

Solution 4

For people that find that don't have an 'n' option (like me on RedHat) you can use cp -u to only write the file if the source is newer than the existing one (or there isn't an existing one).

[edit] As mentioned in the comments, this will overwrite older files, so isn't exactly what the OP wanted. Use ceving's answer for that.

Solution 5

This will work on RedHat:

false | cp -i source destination 2>/dev/null

Updating and not overwriting is something different.

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