How to copy multiple files and move them to multiple folders using terminal for Mac












0















I have a folder on my Mac's desktop called Bthepics that has 9 images that I want to copy and move to about 500 folders at once. These 500 folders are located in a folder on my Mac's desktop called bigcities. I don't want to have to do this manually by selecting all 9 images and dragging each group of nine to all 500 folders individually.



Can anybody show me how to do this using Mac's Terminal or Automator programs?






macos bash automator







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  • The folder bigcities contains only those 500 destination folders and nothing else? ... or is there a different way how to identify those 500 destination folders?

    – pabouk
    Sep 16 '14 at 8:32











  • Hi @pabouk, the folder <code>bigcities</code> only contains the destination folders.

    – Matt
    Sep 16 '14 at 8:39


















0















I have a folder on my Mac's desktop called Bthepics that has 9 images that I want to copy and move to about 500 folders at once. These 500 folders are located in a folder on my Mac's desktop called bigcities. I don't want to have to do this manually by selecting all 9 images and dragging each group of nine to all 500 folders individually.



Can anybody show me how to do this using Mac's Terminal or Automator programs?






macos bash automator







share|improve this question

























  • The folder bigcities contains only those 500 destination folders and nothing else? ... or is there a different way how to identify those 500 destination folders?

    – pabouk
    Sep 16 '14 at 8:32











  • Hi @pabouk, the folder <code>bigcities</code> only contains the destination folders.

    – Matt
    Sep 16 '14 at 8:39
















0












0








0








I have a folder on my Mac's desktop called Bthepics that has 9 images that I want to copy and move to about 500 folders at once. These 500 folders are located in a folder on my Mac's desktop called bigcities. I don't want to have to do this manually by selecting all 9 images and dragging each group of nine to all 500 folders individually.



Can anybody show me how to do this using Mac's Terminal or Automator programs?






macos bash automator







share|improve this question
















I have a folder on my Mac's desktop called Bthepics that has 9 images that I want to copy and move to about 500 folders at once. These 500 folders are located in a folder on my Mac's desktop called bigcities. I don't want to have to do this manually by selecting all 9 images and dragging each group of nine to all 500 folders individually.



Can anybody show me how to do this using Mac's Terminal or Automator programs?






macos bash automator




macos bash automator






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited Sep 16 '14 at 8:31









pabouk

4,92953145




4,92953145










asked Sep 16 '14 at 8:18









MattMatt

111




111













  • The folder bigcities contains only those 500 destination folders and nothing else? ... or is there a different way how to identify those 500 destination folders?

    – pabouk
    Sep 16 '14 at 8:32











  • Hi @pabouk, the folder <code>bigcities</code> only contains the destination folders.

    – Matt
    Sep 16 '14 at 8:39





















  • The folder bigcities contains only those 500 destination folders and nothing else? ... or is there a different way how to identify those 500 destination folders?

    – pabouk
    Sep 16 '14 at 8:32











  • Hi @pabouk, the folder <code>bigcities</code> only contains the destination folders.

    – Matt
    Sep 16 '14 at 8:39



















The folder bigcities contains only those 500 destination folders and nothing else? ... or is there a different way how to identify those 500 destination folders?

– pabouk
Sep 16 '14 at 8:32





The folder bigcities contains only those 500 destination folders and nothing else? ... or is there a different way how to identify those 500 destination folders?

– pabouk
Sep 16 '14 at 8:32













Hi @pabouk, the folder <code>bigcities</code> only contains the destination folders.

– Matt
Sep 16 '14 at 8:39







Hi @pabouk, the folder <code>bigcities</code> only contains the destination folders.

– Matt
Sep 16 '14 at 8:39












3 Answers
3






active

oldest

votes


















0














This loops over every folder in bigcities, and copies all images from Bthepics to that folder.
Run this in Terminal, and see if it outputs what you want. You can simply copy-paste this block of code.



find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -maxdepth 1 -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d '' folder; do

  echo cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/*.jpg "$folder"

done


To do the actual copying, remove the echo before pasting. I'm assuming that your source images have the extension .jpg.



Then just remove the original images manually.






share|improve this answer


























  • Hi slhck! Thanks for the fast reply! I'm very new to coding, do I need to actually type in "find" and "done" in the code? Meaning can I just copy and paste the code you gave me as is into Terminal?

    – Matt
    Sep 16 '14 at 8:38











  • You just take the entire block of code and copy-paste it to the terminal. It should output 500 lines, something like cp IMAGE_1.jpg IMAGE_2.jpg ... IMAGE_9.jpg /Users/matt/Desktop/bigcities/FOLDER_1/, for you to inspect that it's doing the right thing. Once you're sure, you need to remove the echo and then paste it again, which will do the actual copying.

    – slhck
    Sep 16 '14 at 8:46



















0














Here is a simpler code which does not need to run external command (find) and pipe the output. The rest is the same as in the slhck's reply.



cd ~/Desktop/bigcities ; for folder in */ ; do

  echo cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/*.jpg "$folder"

done


This code has one drawback: The list of the destination folders must not exceed about 260 000 characters (command line size limit on Mac OS X 10.5). For 500 folders it is about 500 characters per folder name.






share|improve this answer

































    0














    You should get familiar with xargs command for automation task like this:



    find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -print0 | xargs -I% cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/image[1-9].jpg %/


    that was if your 9 images is named image1.jpg image2.jpg...

    if your 9 images differ of names:



    find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -print0 | xargs -I% cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file1.jpg ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file2.jpg ... ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file9.jpg %/


    the command at the end of xargs is the same as you execute manually with % will be replaced by folders path



    Btw, this command will copy images into the parent folder (~/Desktop/bigcities), so you need to remove it by 1 command:



    rm ~/Desktop/bigcities/image[1-9].jpg


    I hope you understand my idea and apply it for your case.






    share|improve this answer























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      3 Answers
      3






      active

      oldest

      votes








      3 Answers
      3






      active

      oldest

      votes









      active

      oldest

      votes






      active

      oldest

      votes









      0














      This loops over every folder in bigcities, and copies all images from Bthepics to that folder.
      Run this in Terminal, and see if it outputs what you want. You can simply copy-paste this block of code.



      find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -maxdepth 1 -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d '' folder; do
      
  echo cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/*.jpg "$folder"
      
done


      To do the actual copying, remove the echo before pasting. I'm assuming that your source images have the extension .jpg.



      Then just remove the original images manually.






      share|improve this answer


























      • Hi slhck! Thanks for the fast reply! I'm very new to coding, do I need to actually type in "find" and "done" in the code? Meaning can I just copy and paste the code you gave me as is into Terminal?

        – Matt
        Sep 16 '14 at 8:38











      • You just take the entire block of code and copy-paste it to the terminal. It should output 500 lines, something like cp IMAGE_1.jpg IMAGE_2.jpg ... IMAGE_9.jpg /Users/matt/Desktop/bigcities/FOLDER_1/, for you to inspect that it's doing the right thing. Once you're sure, you need to remove the echo and then paste it again, which will do the actual copying.

        – slhck
        Sep 16 '14 at 8:46
















      0














      This loops over every folder in bigcities, and copies all images from Bthepics to that folder.
      Run this in Terminal, and see if it outputs what you want. You can simply copy-paste this block of code.



      find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -maxdepth 1 -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d '' folder; do
      
  echo cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/*.jpg "$folder"
      
done


      To do the actual copying, remove the echo before pasting. I'm assuming that your source images have the extension .jpg.



      Then just remove the original images manually.






      share|improve this answer


























      • Hi slhck! Thanks for the fast reply! I'm very new to coding, do I need to actually type in "find" and "done" in the code? Meaning can I just copy and paste the code you gave me as is into Terminal?

        – Matt
        Sep 16 '14 at 8:38











      • You just take the entire block of code and copy-paste it to the terminal. It should output 500 lines, something like cp IMAGE_1.jpg IMAGE_2.jpg ... IMAGE_9.jpg /Users/matt/Desktop/bigcities/FOLDER_1/, for you to inspect that it's doing the right thing. Once you're sure, you need to remove the echo and then paste it again, which will do the actual copying.

        – slhck
        Sep 16 '14 at 8:46














      0












      0








      0







      This loops over every folder in bigcities, and copies all images from Bthepics to that folder.
      Run this in Terminal, and see if it outputs what you want. You can simply copy-paste this block of code.



      find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -maxdepth 1 -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d '' folder; do
      
  echo cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/*.jpg "$folder"
      
done


      To do the actual copying, remove the echo before pasting. I'm assuming that your source images have the extension .jpg.



      Then just remove the original images manually.






      share|improve this answer















      This loops over every folder in bigcities, and copies all images from Bthepics to that folder.
      Run this in Terminal, and see if it outputs what you want. You can simply copy-paste this block of code.



      find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -maxdepth 1 -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d '' folder; do
      
  echo cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/*.jpg "$folder"
      
done


      To do the actual copying, remove the echo before pasting. I'm assuming that your source images have the extension .jpg.



      Then just remove the original images manually.







      share|improve this answer














      share|improve this answer



      share|improve this answer








      edited Sep 16 '14 at 8:47

























      answered Sep 16 '14 at 8:23









      slhckslhck

      160k47445467




      160k47445467













      • Hi slhck! Thanks for the fast reply! I'm very new to coding, do I need to actually type in "find" and "done" in the code? Meaning can I just copy and paste the code you gave me as is into Terminal?

        – Matt
        Sep 16 '14 at 8:38











      • You just take the entire block of code and copy-paste it to the terminal. It should output 500 lines, something like cp IMAGE_1.jpg IMAGE_2.jpg ... IMAGE_9.jpg /Users/matt/Desktop/bigcities/FOLDER_1/, for you to inspect that it's doing the right thing. Once you're sure, you need to remove the echo and then paste it again, which will do the actual copying.

        – slhck
        Sep 16 '14 at 8:46



















      • Hi slhck! Thanks for the fast reply! I'm very new to coding, do I need to actually type in "find" and "done" in the code? Meaning can I just copy and paste the code you gave me as is into Terminal?

        – Matt
        Sep 16 '14 at 8:38











      • You just take the entire block of code and copy-paste it to the terminal. It should output 500 lines, something like cp IMAGE_1.jpg IMAGE_2.jpg ... IMAGE_9.jpg /Users/matt/Desktop/bigcities/FOLDER_1/, for you to inspect that it's doing the right thing. Once you're sure, you need to remove the echo and then paste it again, which will do the actual copying.

        – slhck
        Sep 16 '14 at 8:46

















      Hi slhck! Thanks for the fast reply! I'm very new to coding, do I need to actually type in "find" and "done" in the code? Meaning can I just copy and paste the code you gave me as is into Terminal?

      – Matt
      Sep 16 '14 at 8:38





      Hi slhck! Thanks for the fast reply! I'm very new to coding, do I need to actually type in "find" and "done" in the code? Meaning can I just copy and paste the code you gave me as is into Terminal?

      – Matt
      Sep 16 '14 at 8:38













      You just take the entire block of code and copy-paste it to the terminal. It should output 500 lines, something like cp IMAGE_1.jpg IMAGE_2.jpg ... IMAGE_9.jpg /Users/matt/Desktop/bigcities/FOLDER_1/, for you to inspect that it's doing the right thing. Once you're sure, you need to remove the echo and then paste it again, which will do the actual copying.

      – slhck
      Sep 16 '14 at 8:46





      You just take the entire block of code and copy-paste it to the terminal. It should output 500 lines, something like cp IMAGE_1.jpg IMAGE_2.jpg ... IMAGE_9.jpg /Users/matt/Desktop/bigcities/FOLDER_1/, for you to inspect that it's doing the right thing. Once you're sure, you need to remove the echo and then paste it again, which will do the actual copying.

      – slhck
      Sep 16 '14 at 8:46













      0














      Here is a simpler code which does not need to run external command (find) and pipe the output. The rest is the same as in the slhck's reply.



      cd ~/Desktop/bigcities ; for folder in */ ; do
      
  echo cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/*.jpg "$folder"
      
done


      This code has one drawback: The list of the destination folders must not exceed about 260 000 characters (command line size limit on Mac OS X 10.5). For 500 folders it is about 500 characters per folder name.






      share|improve this answer






























        0














        Here is a simpler code which does not need to run external command (find) and pipe the output. The rest is the same as in the slhck's reply.



        cd ~/Desktop/bigcities ; for folder in */ ; do
        
  echo cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/*.jpg "$folder"
        
done


        This code has one drawback: The list of the destination folders must not exceed about 260 000 characters (command line size limit on Mac OS X 10.5). For 500 folders it is about 500 characters per folder name.






        share|improve this answer




























          0












          0








          0







          Here is a simpler code which does not need to run external command (find) and pipe the output. The rest is the same as in the slhck's reply.



          cd ~/Desktop/bigcities ; for folder in */ ; do
          
  echo cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/*.jpg "$folder"
          
done


          This code has one drawback: The list of the destination folders must not exceed about 260 000 characters (command line size limit on Mac OS X 10.5). For 500 folders it is about 500 characters per folder name.






          share|improve this answer















          Here is a simpler code which does not need to run external command (find) and pipe the output. The rest is the same as in the slhck's reply.



          cd ~/Desktop/bigcities ; for folder in */ ; do
          
  echo cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/*.jpg "$folder"
          
done


          This code has one drawback: The list of the destination folders must not exceed about 260 000 characters (command line size limit on Mac OS X 10.5). For 500 folders it is about 500 characters per folder name.







          share|improve this answer














          share|improve this answer



          share|improve this answer








          edited Sep 16 '14 at 9:12

























          answered Sep 16 '14 at 8:47









          paboukpabouk

          4,92953145




          4,92953145























              0














              You should get familiar with xargs command for automation task like this:



              find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -print0 | xargs -I% cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/image[1-9].jpg %/


              that was if your 9 images is named image1.jpg image2.jpg...

              if your 9 images differ of names:



              find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -print0 | xargs -I% cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file1.jpg ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file2.jpg ... ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file9.jpg %/


              the command at the end of xargs is the same as you execute manually with % will be replaced by folders path



              Btw, this command will copy images into the parent folder (~/Desktop/bigcities), so you need to remove it by 1 command:



              rm ~/Desktop/bigcities/image[1-9].jpg


              I hope you understand my idea and apply it for your case.






              share|improve this answer




























                0














                You should get familiar with xargs command for automation task like this:



                find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -print0 | xargs -I% cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/image[1-9].jpg %/


                that was if your 9 images is named image1.jpg image2.jpg...

                if your 9 images differ of names:



                find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -print0 | xargs -I% cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file1.jpg ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file2.jpg ... ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file9.jpg %/


                the command at the end of xargs is the same as you execute manually with % will be replaced by folders path



                Btw, this command will copy images into the parent folder (~/Desktop/bigcities), so you need to remove it by 1 command:



                rm ~/Desktop/bigcities/image[1-9].jpg


                I hope you understand my idea and apply it for your case.






                share|improve this answer


























                  0












                  0








                  0







                  You should get familiar with xargs command for automation task like this:



                  find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -print0 | xargs -I% cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/image[1-9].jpg %/


                  that was if your 9 images is named image1.jpg image2.jpg...

                  if your 9 images differ of names:



                  find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -print0 | xargs -I% cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file1.jpg ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file2.jpg ... ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file9.jpg %/


                  the command at the end of xargs is the same as you execute manually with % will be replaced by folders path



                  Btw, this command will copy images into the parent folder (~/Desktop/bigcities), so you need to remove it by 1 command:



                  rm ~/Desktop/bigcities/image[1-9].jpg


                  I hope you understand my idea and apply it for your case.






                  share|improve this answer













                  You should get familiar with xargs command for automation task like this:



                  find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -print0 | xargs -I% cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/image[1-9].jpg %/


                  that was if your 9 images is named image1.jpg image2.jpg...

                  if your 9 images differ of names:



                  find ~/Desktop/bigcities -type d -print0 | xargs -I% cp ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file1.jpg ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file2.jpg ... ~/Desktop/Bthepics/file9.jpg %/


                  the command at the end of xargs is the same as you execute manually with % will be replaced by folders path



                  Btw, this command will copy images into the parent folder (~/Desktop/bigcities), so you need to remove it by 1 command:



                  rm ~/Desktop/bigcities/image[1-9].jpg


                  I hope you understand my idea and apply it for your case.







                  share|improve this answer












                  share|improve this answer



                  share|improve this answer










                  answered Sep 16 '14 at 10:55









                  incousincous

                  462




                  462






























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