Creating Files and Directories

Now you can move around — let's start creating things. These four commands cover most of daily file management.

Creating directories with mkdir

mkdir projects          # create one directory
mkdir -p a/b/c          # create nested directories in one go

The -p flag creates any missing parent directories and, unlike plain mkdir, does not error if the directory already exists.

Creating files with touch

touch creates an empty file (or updates the timestamp of an existing one):

touch notes.txt

Copying with cp

cp notes.txt backup.txt     # copy a file
cp -r projects projects-backup   # copy a directory (recursive)

Moving and renaming with mv

mv moves a file — and because moving a file into the same directory is the same as renaming it, mv is also how you rename:

mv notes.txt notes2.txt     # rename
mv notes2.txt projects/     # move into a directory

Deleting with rm

rm notes.txt            # delete a file
rm -r projects          # delete a directory and everything inside it

Try it

1. mkdir -p sandbox/a sandbox/b
2. touch sandbox/a/first.txt
3. cp sandbox/a/first.txt sandbox/b/second.txt
4. mv sandbox/b/second.txt sandbox/a/renamed.txt
5. ls -R sandbox — see the whole tree at once