Linux copy directory tree

Linux: rsync Copy Directories Structures Tree Only

I am looking for to only sync directories structures only. How do I copy directory structure tree without copying any files under Linux or UNIX operating system to remove server or local directory?

You need to use the rsync command. The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just

the differences between two sets of files across the network connection, using an efficient checksum-search algorithm. Make sure it is installed on all servers for remote copy. The syntax is as follows to copy directories tree only:

If you are using an older rsync version, try:

rsync Command For Directory Structures / Tree Only

Consider the following layout in /var/logs/apache/ for each domain:

You can sync just directories by excluding everything else. Open a command-line terminal (select Applications > Accessories > Terminal), and then type the following commands or login using ssh to the remote server. You want to copy all dirs i.e. exclude everything that is not a directory, enter:
# cd /var/log/apache/
# rsync -av -f»+ */» -f»- *» . root@server2.nixcraft.com:/var/log/apache/
Sample outputs:

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You can also make local copies as follows:
# cd /var/log/apache/
# rsync -av -f»+ */» -f»- *» . /jailfs/apache/httpd_root/var/log/apache/

See also:

If you need assistance with Linux / UNIX rsync command-line options, turn to the man page first. It will give you detailed information, parameters and switches for rsync command:
$ man rsync

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How to Copy a Directory in Linux Command Line [Beginner’s Tip]

If you are new to Linux command line, you probably have this question in mind: How do I copy a directory and the files inside it to another directory in Linux command line?

Here’s how to copy a directory in Linux:

You probably already know that you can use cp command to copy files in Linux. Do you know that you can use the same cp command to copy a folder in Linux command line?

Hah! You already tried that and perhaps got this error:

Let me show you a thing or two about copying directory in Linux.

Copy directory in Linux command line

You can definitely use the same cp command but with the recursive option -r to copy a folder with its content to another folder. The above mentioned error also hints that you missed the -r option.

All you got to do is to use the command in this fashion:

And now if you use ls command on the destination directory, it should have the entire source directory inside it.

The -r option allows the recursive option. This means the entire content of the directory including its own subdirectories, everything in the directory will be copied to the destination.

A few things to note about copying directory in Linux

Here are a couple of things to note and tips about copying folders.

The destination directory doesn’t exist? It will be created

If the destination directory doesn’t exist (but the path exists), it will be created up to one level (explained in the next section). However, it will now copy the contents of the source directory, not the source directory itself.

For example, if you do this:

The non_existing_directory will be created with the content of the source_directory but it won’t have the source_directory inside it. Just the files of source_directory will be copied. It would be like non_existing_directory will be a replica of source_directory.

Can’t create nested directory while copying

You cannot use the above command to create nested directory structure.

For example, if you try to use cp -r source_dir dir1/dir2/dir3 but dir2 and dir3 don’t exist, it won’t create the nested directory structure and the command fails.

Preserve the original file attributes

One last tip to keep things short. If you use the -a option along with the -r option, it will preserve the original file information such as file permissions, file timestamps etc. It will archive the directory to the new location instead of creating it afresh.

That’s it

This much information should be enough for you to know how to copy a directory in Linux. If you have questions or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment.

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How do I copy a directory tree but not the files in Linux?

I want to copy about 200 directories & subdirectories from one location to another but I don’t want to copy the thousands of files within those directories. I am on Linux.

Note: I don’t have enough space to copy everything then delete all the files.

8 Answers 8

Just found this:

Another approach is with find and mkdir:

Just make sure TARGET already exists or use the -p option of mkdir.

You also can do :

The power of simplicity 😉

Similarly, using (GNU) tar:

You don’t really need the -print0 on the find command line or the -0 on the rsync command line unless you have filenames that contain newline characters (which is possible but highly unlikely). Tar (and rsync, and cpio) read filenames line-by-line; using a NULL terminator is mostly useful with xargs , which normally reads whitespace separated filenames (and so does not handle files/directories with spaces in their names without -0 ).

Would copy all files with hard links. Same structure, same permissions. (note: hard links, so no storage lost.)

ls -d */ @source: find . -type d -print0 >dirs.txt @destination: xargs -0 mkdir -p

This will cause both commands to use nulls as separators instead of whitespaces. Note that the order of -type d and -print0 is important!

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How do I copy folder with files to another folder in Unix/Linux? [closed]

Want to improve this question? Update the question so it’s on-topic for Stack Overflow.

Closed 8 years ago .

I am having some issues to copy a folder with files in that folder into another folder. Command cp -r doesn’t copy files in the folder.

3 Answers 3

The option you’re looking for is -R .

• If destination doesn’t exist, it will be created.
• -R means copy directories recursively . You can also use -r since it’s case-insensitive.
• To copy everything inside the source folder (symlinks, hidden files) without copying the source folder itself use -a flag along with trailing /. in the source (as per @muni764 ‘s / @Anton Krug ‘s comment):

You are looking for the cp command. You need to change directories so that you are outside of the directory you are trying to copy.

If the directory you’re copying is called dir1 and you want to copy it to your /home/Pictures folder:

Linux is case-sensitive and also needs the / after each directory to know that it isn’t a file.

is a special character in the terminal that automatically evaluates to the current user’s home directory. If you need to know what directory you are in, use the command pwd .

When you don’t know how to use a Linux command, there is a manual page that you can refer to by typing:

at a terminal prompt.

Also, to auto complete long file paths when typing in the terminal, you can hit Tab after you’ve started typing the path and you will either be presented with choices, or it will insert the remaining part of the path.

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Linux command to print directory structure in the form of a tree

Is there any linux command that I can call from a Bash script that will print the directory structure in the form of a tree, e.g.,

10 Answers 10

Is this what you’re looking for tree? It should be in most distributions (maybe as an optional install).

sample taken from maintainer’s web page.

You can add the option -L # where # is replaced by a number, to specify the max recursion depth.

Remove -d to display also files.

You can use this one:

It will show a graphical representation of the current sub-directories without files in a few seconds, e.g. in /var/cache/ :

This command works to display both folders and files.

Source: Comment from @javasheriff here. Its submerged as a comment and posting it as answer helps users spot it easily.

To add Hassou’s solution to your .bashrc, try:

Since it was a successful comment, I am adding it as an answer:
To print the directory structure in the form of a tree,
WITH FILES

Since I was not too happy with the output of other (non- tree ) answers (see my comment at Hassou’s answer), I tried to mimic tree s output a bit more.

It’s similar to the answer of Robert but the horizontal lines do not all start at the beginning, but where there are supposed to start. Had to use perl though, but in my case, on the system where I don’t have tree , perl is available.

Suggestions to avoid the superfluous vertical lines are welcome 🙂

I still like Ben’s solution in the comment of Hassou’s answer very much, without the (not perfectly correct) lines it’s much cleaner. For my use case I additionally removed the global indentation and added the option to also ls hidden files, like so:

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