Best way to move the contents of a folder to another one

UNIX for Beginners Q & A
1

what is the best way to move the contents of a folder to another one without deleting the structure of the first one. the contents could include subfolder too.

both folder, the source-folder and the target-folder are on the same host.

any idea is appreciated .

2

What do you think you would do?
What have you tried?

3

I think the solution is rsync but I have no experience.
Can I use it on windows? should I install cygwin?

4

You posted on a Unix Support Forum.
I you trying to do this with unix (or unix tools)?

This makes it seem like the file structure is on a PC. Why not use PC tools then?

5

yes, unix tools

6

As others have said rsync is a good method. I use it as follows

rsync -av /source/dir/path/* /dest/dir/path

or

rsync -av /source/dir/path/* .

use d for current directory. -av means that the file permissions
and time stamp will not change. I installed Cygwin on Windows including
Windows 2000 and I was able to copy files across servers using the unc path.

7

You may want to begin with a search of these forums to learn about approaches to this.
For instance --

8

@gandolf989 it works fine! thank you
I would like to use it in a cron job that starts every 30 min
Is there any way to know, if new files are moved?

---------- Post updated at 02:17 PM ---------- Previous update was at 01:10 PM ----------

solution found:
rsync -avhic