terminal commands for moving files

Compare the command that you entered above with this one:

find /Volumes/master\ catalogue\ cr2\ and\ jpeg -iname '*.cr2' -exec mv {} /Volumes/14\ tb\ 1\ /cr22/ \;

Above command is also using the code <> formatting here in the ASC forum. Here’s the button that inserts that:

There are two differences between the command you’ve tried (above), and this (corrected) command. One, the exec command should be -exec with the leading dash character, and second, the quote on the filename is an angled quote and not a vertical quote. The unterminated single quote (the angle quote doesn’t end the string) is why you got that quote> response, and how I knew a quoting error was lurking somewhere.

Before running the corrected command, I would suggest testing with the following (using slightly different syntax):

find "/Volumes/master catalogue cr2 and jpeg" -iname '*.cr2' -exec ls {} \;

Here’s the full and corrected command, using quoted strings on thenfile specification and not backslash escapes:

find "/Volumes/master catalogue cr2 and jpeg" -iname '*.cr2' -exec mv {} "/Volumes/14 tb 1 /cr22/" \;

And the prompts-interactively-for-each-move version, which I’ve used for testing:

find "/Volumes/master catalogue cr2 and jpeg" -iname '*.cr2' -exec mv -i {} "/Volumes/14 tb 1 /cr22/" \;

If the mv command is working as expected, quit the command (^C, etc) and re-specify the mv command without the -i.

In general… The shell wants vertical single quotes, and vertical double quotes, and GUI tools and this ASC forum text input box prefer to use the angled versions of these characters.

PS: The destination path with the training space on that intermediate directory looks wrong. You’ve shown it in your command, but I suspect that trailing space does not exist on that directory name. Which means using this:

find "/Volumes/master catalogue cr2 and jpeg" -iname '*.cr2' -exec mv {} "/Volumes/14 tb 1/cr22/" \;

You need a directory to search first. The usage is:

find </path/to/search> -iname '*.cr2'

I strongly recommend trying just the above first. Then add the -exec.

Or, this might be faster than the UNIX find command by engaging 4 (arbitrary choice) processes for the copy. It is recursive so the choice of SRCDIR is important, and is case-insensitive (c):

/usr/bin/mdfind -onlyin SRCDIR 'kMDItemDisplayName == "*.cr2"c' | xargs -P 4 -I{} cp -a {} DESTDIR

Example (tested on macOS 13.2.1):

mdfind -onlyin ~/Documents/__WIP__/Images 'kMDItemDisplayName == "*.cr2"c' | xargs -P 4 -I{} cp -a {} ~/Desktop/E

With 500K files for potential processing, nothing will be overly quick.

In addition to the above, the command to move files is mv, while cp copies files.

Technically, you could also use a Finder search to find all files with the specified name, select all (Command-A) in the search results, and drag the whole list of files into the target directory. No shell required.

The command line is unforgiving. One wrong character, and all your data is gone. Not just those images, everything will be gone.

I strongly recommend that you DO NOT attempt to use the "mv" command. A lot can go wrong with that command. There is a very good chance that using "mv" in a script is functionally equivalent to running "rm".

You had it right the first time. Use the "cp" command. Then, when you have verified the results and the output is correct, you can manually delete the old files or do a similar find command to delete them.

Try the command without any -exec portion first. Verify it lists the files you want to operate on.

Then, add a test -exec, like so:

find </path/to/search> -iname '*.cr2' -exec echo cp {} /Volumes/14\ tb\ 1/ \; 

Verify that this works properly. You can do this by copying the first few lines and pasting them into the Terminal. Inspect the results. If they look good, then remove the "echo" part and run it for real.

When you are happy with the results, you can do something like this to clean up:

find </path/to/search> -iname '*.cr2' -delete

Add additional Finder search criteria such as selecting a subset of files by years or such, then.

Or yes, zsh scripts will work fine for this stuff.

But I’d be looking for a photo management database package, at that scale.

You’re going to be creating one yourself one script at a time, otherwise.

If you do decide to continue with your own app design for your photo management app, I’d suggest having a look at Filemaker Pro as its underpinnings.

And FWIW, a mistake I’ve seen a number of photographers make: use and depend on the EXIF data and not the file system metadata. The file system metadata can change when you might not want it to. The EXIF data is more directly under your control (and that of your photo management app), and not under the control of the file system (which controls the file system metadata).

terminalnewbie wrote:

Thanks for this. When I used the command that you suggest, it seems to work fine. When I add the exec part, I get:

quote>

as the response.

Seemingly an omitted or mis-specified quote.

Please post (using the <> code tags) the command used, and its output.

That means a couple of areas of your storage were protected, and not searchable. Those two areas are among those normally protected, too. The command worked, but can’t report finding from those two areas.

There’s a way around that particular protection, but I’m hesitant to suggest using sudo on the find command here, as sudo is an override. An override that’s one mistake away from prodigious mayhem.

terminalnewbie wrote:

I agree! I don't want to grant full disk access nor do I really want to use sudo. Not yet. I am just too green.

So, if I get those errors but Terminal does not return to the % prompt, should I just wait - is the command being run on the rest of the disk?

The find command will take as long as it takes. Spotlight runs in the background and caches the search results and the interactive part thus runs very quickly, while find runs at the speed of your storage and its contents. It’ll finish when it finishes.

There’s an mdfind command with a semi-obscurely-documented keyword syntax that runs at Spotlight speeds.

https://ss64.com/osx/mdfind.html

https://bryce-s.com/mdfind/

terminalnewbie wrote:

thanks! I am not sure if I am allowed to ask this here but are there coders that can be hired online for quick jobs like mine?

Are there developers that can provide this? Yes.

That written, Apple does not allow offers nor requests around here.