Windows Move Command | Move Files From One Folder to Another in CMD

In the Windows Command Prompt, we use the move command to move files from one directory to another (cut and paste).

The syntax of the move command is as follows:

move <Source> <Target>

We can also use the move command to move folders from one location to another.

Command Options

/Y	Do not ask for confirmation if a duplicate file is found at the destination. The destination file will be overwritten.
/-Y	Ask before overwriting destination files.

Examples

Move sales.doc in the current directory to C:\backup directory:

move sales.doc C:\backup

Move C:\data\sales.doc to C:\backup directory. The file will be overwritten if it already exists in the destination folder:

move /y C:\data\sales.doc C:\backup

Move C:\data\finance to C:\backup folder:

move C:\data\finance C:\backup

Move all files in a directory

You can use wildcards with the move command. For example, the following command moves all files in the C:\data to C:\backup.

move /y C:\data\* C:\backup

The following command moves all files with a .doc extension to the backup folder:

move /y C:\data\*.doc C:\backup

In the following example, all files whose names start with screenshot are moved to the C:\backup directory.

move /y C:\data\screenshot* C:\backup

Move two or more files

To move two or more files without using wildcards, you have to use a for loop, as shown in the following example:

for %i in (sales.doc, products.doc) do move /y %i C:\backup

If you want to run the for command in a batch file, you would use two % (%%) with the variable.

for %%i in (sales.doc, products.doc) do move /y %%i C:\backup

The move command deletes the source file after it is copied to the destination. If you want to keep the original file, use the copy or xcopy.