Can I verbose output during a copy command processing?

Question

Situation: If I entered a copy command like cp -rf /src/ /dsc/ then I am waiting several minutes for copy large directories. I forgot to put -v flag to verbose an output, Can I do it during copying?

score 138 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 29 '16 at 12:18

138

This question seems to be old, but for the cp command you've got the --verbose option.

So the command works as follows:

cp --verbose -rf /src/ /dsc/

edited Jun 29 '16 at 12:18

grooveplex

2,506

answered Jun 29 '16 at 09:10

myolli4

1,489

4

someone mark this a correct answer – Orphans Nov 23 '16 at 20:04
10

This is ideally what one should have done, but the point of the question was, what can you do to monitor the copy progress if you forgot to do this for a large operation. – merv Dec 23 '16 at 04:08
1

on mac terminal, this gives cp: illegal option -- - – muon Jul 19 '18 at 17:54
7

although cp -rv works – muon Jul 19 '18 at 18:11
6

cp -v -r will indicate that you want to display files being copied (as specified by -v), and -r will indicate that you want to recursively copy files, which will be needed if you are copying any sub-directories. – Ali Nobari Jan 04 '19 at 06:22
On mac, jjust -v works – Ryu S. Jul 29 '24 at 18:05

score 46 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 22 '12 at 11:20

46

No you can't, but you could use the watch command to look at the destination directory to see how the process is progressing, eg.

watch ls -l /dsc/

answered Dec 22 '12 at 11:20

fabricator4

8,481

5

Please add watch "find . | wc -l" as well. I found it better since your command only shows one level depth. – guy mograbi Jan 07 '15 at 08:29
How to deal with space in the path ? usual " " , ' ' or escaping \ doesn't seem to to work for watch ls -l /path with spaces/ – Greenmarty Apr 08 '24 at 08:37

score 17 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 18 '16 at 16:49

You could always use rsync instead, you'll atleast get to see the files that are being copied

rsync -rva /src/ /dst/

Of-course this only works before you start copying as an alternative to cp. The good news is though that rsync will only copy the files it needs to so you can kill your long-running cp command run the rsync command and it will pick up where cp left off.

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 20 '15 at 16:13

8

I propose :

watch du -sh /dsc/

answered Jun 20 '15 at 16:13

odile

81

5

Since this is just an improvement to an existing answer, consider suggesting an [edit] instead. – muru Jun 20 '15 at 16:21

Vitalii Kyktov · Answer 5 · 2014-03-30T07:12:33.117

3

I recommend to use Midnight Commander in case when you need to see a progress of files copying.

Install Midnight commander:
```
apt-get install mc
```
Open it:
```
mc
```
On first panel open source, on second - destination. Start copying using "F5".

MC will display nice and informative progress dialog.

edited Mar 30 '14 at 07:12

answered Mar 28 '14 at 14:56

Vitalii Kyktov

51

Can I verbose output during a copy command processing?

5 Answers5