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How to select files in subdirectories by name and move all files containing "XXX" and "YYY" into new directories

Directory contents

Subdirectory contents

Hello all, how can I move all files with the name "ATAC" and all files with the name "RNA" into separate folders? The context is that in the current the directory, I have many subdirectories which contains fastq files with "ATAC" and "RNA" in their names; if the files were in the directory in not stored in another directory, it would be easy and I can just select the files using RNA* and ATAC*, but the problem is they are stored in subdirectories; how can I select the 2 subset of files and move them into new separate (one for ATAC, one for RNA) folders in this case?

Solution

  • With the command find (https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-find-files-in-linux-using-the-command-line/), you can look for a file in every directory and subdirectory and execute a command on it.

    find -L . -name "*ATAC*" -exec mv {} path-to-your-directory/ \