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Copy a Directory from Command Line

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Copying a directory for the sake of backup is something I do often, especially when I'm trying to figure out why something isn't working when I use an external library.  I'll copy the directory structure as a backup, mess around with the original source until I find a solution, then restore the original and change my overall system code to bring in my revised version.

You can't just use cp to copy a directory structure -- you'll see cp: myDir is a directory (not copied).  You'll need to add a few additional flags to copy a directory structure:

cp -Rp source source_copy

The above command copies the directory recursively while keeping the same permissions!

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Discussion

  1. Jeremiah Megel

    Why do you have the -s flag in there? Looking at the --help for cp, that’s the option to “make symbolic links instead of copying”, and according to Stack Overflow http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1240636 , that doesn’t even work recursively (with the -R flag). (Nor can I see why you would want to copy an entire directory recursively only for it to be populated with symlinks, especially “for the sake of backup”.) Typo?

    • Jeremiah Megel

      EDIT: David has since corrected the error in question.

  2. John Karahalis

    Another great option that I somehow always forget to use is -a (archive), used like so:

    cp -a source source_copy

    It copies structure and permissions and also preserves symlinks.

  3. demx

    Just use rsync, faster and more options. )

  4. nyxem

    Good to know. But I agree with @John

  5. Evgeniy

    I prefer to use rsync for this purpose

    rsync -rav ./source/ ./destination/

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