Move multiple files from filename list to a new folder

Question

I have a list of filename in list.txt, which have 'abc1.png, abc2.png, abc3.png....'.

However, I don't know the directories where the files are.

I want to find all files in the txt file, and move them to a new folder.

Answer 1

You need to read each filename line-by-line, then try to find it using the name option, and finally mv it to the target:

while IFS= read -r filename; do
    find /somewhere -type f -name "$filename" -exec mv -- {} /somewhere/else/ \;
done < file.txt

The {} will be replaced with the found file path.

Answer 2

Assuming your file names do not contain ", " or newlines and every file exists in list.txt only once. You also naturally have to change newdirectory to directory you want. If any file in list.txt is missing, the file is not copied (and no info given).

sed -s "s/, /\\n/g" list.txt | xargs -IFILE -n1 find -name FILE -exec mv {} newdirectory \;

Answer 3

This is easy with some bash :

first find your files with find and redirect the ouptut in another file :

for arg in $(cat list.txt); do find / -name $arg -print >> files_with_path.txt; done

then mv the files :

for arg in $(cat files_with_path.txt); do mv $arg /your/dest/folder; done