Moving & Renaming Items (mv)

Command Equivalents

Description

The Move-Item cmdlet in PowerShell serves a dual purpose, just like the mv command in Linux:

1. It moves a file or directory from one location to another.
2. It renames a file or directory.

A key difference from other cmdlets is that Move-Item does not require the -Recurse parameter when moving a directory that contains items. The command moves the entire directory tree by default.

Common Usage

Moving a File

To move a file, specify its current path and the destination directory.

# Moves the report.docx file from Downloads to Documents
Move-Item -Path "C:\Users\Default\Downloads\report.docx" -Destination "C:\Users\Default\Documents\"

Moving a Directory

Moving a directory and all its contents is straightforward. -Recurse is not needed.

# Moves the entire 'MyProject' directory to an archive folder
Move-Item -Path "C:\source\MyProject" -Destination "D:\Archives\"

Renaming a File

To rename a file, use Move-Item and specify the new name as the destination, keeping the path the same.

# Renames 'temp-data.csv' to 'final-data.csv' in the current directory
Move-Item -Path ".\temp-data.csv" -Destination ".\final-data.csv"

Renaming a Directory

The same logic applies to renaming directories.

# Renames the 'Build' folder to 'Build-Archive'
Move-Item -Path ".\Build" -Destination ".\Build-Archive"

Forcing a Move

If an item with the same name already exists at the destination, you can use the -Force parameter to overwrite it without a confirmation prompt.

# Moves the config file, overwriting the destination if it exists
Move-Item -Path ".\config.xml" -Destination "C:\App\Deployment\" -Force