MV(1)

💖 mv(1) — the move-y bestie page 💖

💅 NAME 💅

okay so this is the General Commands Manual page for mv — manual name mv, and the whole point is literally: Move SOURCE to DEST, or multiple SOURCE(s) to DIRECTORY. it’s giving “put that file where it belongs” energy 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

mv [OPTION]... [-T] SOURCE DEST
mv [OPTION]... SOURCE... DIRECTORY
mv [OPTION]... -t DIRECTORY SOURCE...

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Move SOURCE to DEST, or multiple SOURCE(s) to DIRECTORY. That’s the whole vibe — moving SOURCE to DEST or multiple SOURCE(s) into DIRECTORY, no cap 🫶

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

okay bestie, here’s the full option menu — every single one, fr fr:

• -f, --force — do not prompt before overwriting.
• -i, --interactive — prompt before override.
• -n, --no-clobber — do not overwrite an existing file.
• --strip-trailing-slashes — remove any trailing slashes from each SOURCE argument.
• --backup[=<CONTROL>] — make a backup of each existing destination file.
• -b — like --backup but does not accept an argument.
• -S, --suffix <SUFFIX> — override the usual backup suffix.
• --update — move only when the SOURCE file is newer than the destination file or when the destination file is missing.
  • Possible values:
    • none
    • all
    • older
    • none-fail
• -u — like --update but does not accept an argument.
• -t, --target-directory <DIRECTORY> — move all SOURCE arguments into DIRECTORY.
• -T, --no-target-directory — treat DEST as a normal file.
• -v, --verbose — explain what is being done.
• -g, --progress — Display a progress bar. Note: this feature is not supported by GNU coreutils.
• -Z — set SELinux security context of destination file to default type.
• --context[=<CTX>] — like -Z, or if CTX is specified then set the SELinux security context to CTX.
• --debug — explain how a file is copied. Implies -v.
• --exchange — exchange source and destination (atomically swap them).
• -h, --help — Print help.
• -V, --version — Print version.
• <files> — yep, the option list literally ends with this placeholder; no cap, that’s what’s written.

🌸 EXTRA 🌸

When specifying more than one of -i, -f, -n, only the final one will take effect — periodt.

Do not move a non-directory that has an existing destination with the same or newer modification timestamp; instead, silently skip the file without failing. If the move is across file system boundaries, the comparison is to the source timestamp truncated to the resolutions of the destination file system and of the system calls used to update timestamps; this avoids duplicate work if several mv -u commands are executed with the same source and destination. This option is ignored if the -n or --no-clobber option is also specified. It gives more control over which existing files in the destination are replaced, and its value can be one of the following:

• all — this is the default operation when an --update option is not specified, and results in all existing files in the destination being replaced.
• none — this is similar to the --no-clobber option, in that no files in the destination are replaced, but also skipping a file does not induce a failure.
• older — this is the default operation when --update is specified, and results in files being replaced if they’re older than the corresponding source file.

The backup suffix is '~', unless set with --suffix or SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX. The version control method may be selected via the --backup option or through the VERSION_CONTROL environment variable. Here are the values:

• none, off — never make backups (even if --backup is given)
• numbered, t — make numbered backups
• existing, nil — numbered if numbered backups exist, simple otherwise
• simple, never — always make simple backups

👑 VERSION 👑

the version is literally v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0 — iconic, obsessed.

💖 source/version: v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0 · date: 2026-09-17 — mwah, bye bestie, go move something cute 🦋