MV(1) User Commands MV(1)

mv — move files

/usr/bin/mv [-fin] source target_file

/usr/bin/mv [-fin] source... target_dir

/usr/bin/mv [-fin] -T source target


/usr/xpg4/bin/mv [-fin] source target_file

/usr/xpg4/bin/mv [-fin] source... target_dir

/usr/xpg4/bin/mv [-fin] -T source target

In the first synopsis form, the mv utility moves the file named by the source operand to the destination specified by the target_file. source and target_file can not have the same name. If target_file does not exist, mv creates a file named target_file. If target_file exists, its contents are overwritten. This first synopsis form is assumed when the final operand does not name an existing directory.

In the second synopsis form, mv moves each file named by a source operand to a destination file in the existing directory named by the target_dir operand. The destination path for each source is the concatenation of the target directory, a single slash character (‘/’) and the last path name component of the source. This second form is assumed when the final operand names an existing directory.

The third synopsis form allows target to either be a file or directory, but treats it as though a file was always specified. Specifically, it does not perform the synopsis two behavior of putting the file inside target_dir and instead would replace target_dir if the source is also a directory and target_dir is empty.

If mv determines that the mode of target_file forbids writing, it prints the mode (see chmod(2)), asks for a response, and reads the standard input for one line. If the response is affirmative, the mv occurs, if permissible; otherwise, the command exits. Notice that the mode displayed can not fully represent the access permission if target is associated with an ACL. When the parent directory of source is writable and has the sticky bit set, one or more of the following conditions must be true:

If source is a file and target_file is a link to another file with links, the other links remain and target_file becomes a new file.

If source and target_file/target_dir are on different file systems, mv copies the source and deletes the original. Any hard links to other files are lost. mv attempts to duplicate the source file characteristics to the target, that is, the owner and group id, permission modes, modification and access times, ACLs, and extended attributes, if applicable. For symbolic links, mv preserves only the owner and group of the link itself.

If unable to preserve owner and group id, mv clears S_ISUID and S_ISGID bits in the target. mv prints a diagnostic message to stderr if unable to clear these bits, though the exit code is not affected. mv might be unable to preserve extended attributes if the target file system does not have extended attribute support. /usr/xpg4/bin/mv prints a diagnostic message to stderr for all other failed attempts to duplicate file characteristics. The exit code is not affected.

In order to preserve the source file characteristics, users must have the appropriate file access permissions. This includes being super-user or having the same owner id as the destination file.

mv moves the file(s) without prompting even if it is writing over an existing target. Note that this is the default if the standard input is not a terminal. This overrides any -i and -n options already specified on the command line.
mv prompts for confirmation whenever the move would overwrite an existing target. An affirmative answer means that the move should proceed. Any other answer prevents mv from overwriting the target. This overrides any -n options already specified on the command line. See the discussion of binary-specific behavior below for how -i and -f interact.
mv will not overwrite target if it already exists, proceeding on to other sources. This does not generate an error. This overrides any -i or -f options already specified on the command line.
Treat target as a file. Normally when target is a directory source_file is moved into target. This is only usable with exactly one source_file and target.

Specifying the -f, the -i, and the -n options is not considered an error. The last option specified determines the behavior of mv with one exception: the -f option overrides all -i options, regardless of where they appear in the command line.

Specifying the -f, the -i, and the -n options is not considered an error. The last option specified determines the behavior of mv.

The following operands are supported:

source
A path name of a file or directory to be moved.
target_file
A new path name for the file or directory being moved.
target_dir
A path name of an existing directory into which to move the input files.

See largefile(7) for the description of the behavior of mv when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte (2^31 bytes).

See environ(7) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of mv: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.

Affirmative responses are processed using the extended regular expression defined for the yesexpr keyword in the LC_MESSAGES category of the user's locale. The locale specified in the LC_COLLATE category defines the behavior of ranges, equivalence classes, and multi-character collating elements used in the expression defined for yesexpr. The locale specified in LC_CTYPE determines the locale for interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data a characters, the behavior of character classes used in the expression defined for the yesexpr. See locale(7).

The following exit values are returned:

All input files were moved successfully.
An error occurred.

cp(1), cpio(1), ln(1), rm(1), setfacl(1), chmod(2), attributes(7), environ(7), fsattr(7), largefile(7), standards(7)

A -- permits the user to mark explicitly the end of any command line options, allowing mv to recognize filename arguments that begin with a -. As an aid to BSD migration, mv accepts - as a synonym for --. This migration aid might disappear in a future release.

March 22, 2026 OmniOS