How to move files from one directory to a nested directory using SSH?

Question

I would like to know how to move all the files, not the folder or directory, to an existing folder or directory two levels down.

Answer 1

You'll want to use the find command.

find . -type f -name "*" -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} mv {} ../backup_dir ; mv ../backup_dir ./new/directory

Note that I've moved the files to a directory to one directory up, to prevent find from being stuck in a loop finding the new files that you're moving. Then move the directory two levels down.

If you need only files in the current directory, you can use the command:

find . -type f -maxdepth 1 -name "*" -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} mv {} ../backup_dir 

Answer 2

If you have zsh available, this is pretty simple. The pattern * matches all files (including directories). To match only regular files, add the glob qualifier .. Glob qualifiers are a zsh feature.

mv *(.) existing/subsubdirectory/

(Actually * skips files whose name begins with a . (“dot files”). This is probably not a concern here, but if you do need to move those as well, add a D inside the parentheses.)