Recursive Duplicates

Let’s assume you need to create the duplicate of a directory. In this case, the directory is dir_1 and the duplicate is dir_2. The quickest way to do this is by using the mv command to move dir_1 and its contents to dir_2 by virtually renaming it. Here, the mv command is similar to the cut utility in Windows:

$ mv /dir_1 /dir_2

The mv command isn’t useful when you need to duplicate the directory and have two copies. Then, you need to use the cp command but when you use the vanilla cp command to copy a directory with content inside of it, you get the error message below:

cp: -r omitting directory

The error message means that it’s possible to copy directories but by default, the cp command can’t copy sub-directories in a recursive manner. To solve this, you should append a recursive flag to the command, like this:

$ cp -r /dir_1 /dir_2

or:

$ cp -r /dir_1 /dir_2

or:

cp --recursive /dir_1 dir_2