move only if file exists in a shell script

Question

I want to use mv to rename a file:

mv src.txt dest.txt

If the file doesn't exist, I get an error:

mv: cannot stat ‘src.txt’: No such file or directory

How do I use mv only if the file already exists?

I don't want to redirect stderr to dev/null as I'd like to keep any other errors that occur

mahemoff · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-23 01:19:26Z

110

One-liner:

[ -f old ] && mv old nu

answered Apr 23, 2018 at 1:19

mahemoff

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1

Note that you have to remember to keep the spaces by the brackets. "[-f old]" not working was a surprise for me, who is more used to whitespace-insensitive languages
– jakebeal
Commented May 20, 2022 at 20:23
2

@jakebeal True. The [ here is actually shorthand for test, so the rest (before &) are plain old space-separated arguments like you’d pass to any shell command.
– mahemoff
Commented May 22, 2022 at 7:16

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Mateen Ulhaq · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-03 05:28:12Z

89

This one liner returns successfully even if the file is not found:

[ ! -f src ] || mv src dest

answered Oct 3, 2019 at 5:28

Mateen Ulhaq

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8

(@mahemoff's version returns false if the file is not found.)
– Mateen Ulhaq
Commented Oct 3, 2019 at 5:30
13

[ ! -d src ] || mv src dest if it's a folder
– Spidy
Commented May 1, 2022 at 23:52
2

I was getting failure notifications in a VS Code tasks running @mahemoff's version. Now I know why. Thanks for the fix.
– Chris Redford
Commented Jan 27, 2023 at 3:13

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oz123 · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-29 12:52:53Z

67

You should test if the file exists

if [ -f blah ]; then
   mv blah destination
fi

answered Oct 29, 2015 at 12:52

oz123

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3

@Oz123 to be pedantic need to use [ -r blah ], for additional check in read permision
– SergA
Commented Oct 29, 2015 at 14:22
Only -r worked for me even though the problem was that the file wasn't there at all.
– Zargold
Commented Apr 6, 2018 at 17:38
2

@SergA, in that particuliar case, wouldn't [ -w blah ] be more appropriate since mv needs write permissions over the file?
– ghilesZ
Commented Apr 14, 2018 at 10:51
3

@ghilesZ, actually there is no need to check write and read file permissions. To move file you need to have permission to detach it from the directory where it was before, and to attach it to the directory where you're putting it. Got from here.
– SergA
Commented Apr 15, 2018 at 13:45
3

For directories use [ -d myDir ].
– Joshua Pinter
Commented Mar 7, 2021 at 19:26

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3 Answers 3