Create Subfolders for files and move them into, each for themselves

Question

In Linux in a Folder there are these files:

LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part01.rar
LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part02.rar
LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part03.rar
LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part04.rar
LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part05.rar
LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part06.rar
LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part07.rar
LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part08.rar
LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part09.rar
LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part10.rar
no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3.part1.rar
no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3.part2.rar
NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part1.rar
NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part2.rar
NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part3.rar
NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part4.rar
VEwMzBPH91J.part1.rar
VEwMzBPH91J.part2.rar

I want to create a folder with the name LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC

In this Folder I want to move all LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part... files.

For no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3,NwgdNaort1EqT0ch and VEwMzBPH91J the same way too.

To get a list with the names I do this:

ls -1 * | cut -f1 -d "." | uniq > ../names

For creating the Subfolders I use:

cat ../names | xargs mkdir

I then tried then something like:

cat ../names | xargs -I '{}' mv '{}*' {}

But I think I am not on the right way....

It does not work.

xargs doesn't use the shell to execute the command, so wildcards have no special meaning to it. — Barmar
– Barmar, Commented Jun 22 at 22:08

Stéphane Chazelas · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-22 15:07:10Z

6

With zsh's zmv autoloadable function:

mkmv() { mkdir -p -- $2:h && mv -- "$@"; }
autoload -Uz zmv
zmv -P mkmv '(*).part<->.rar' '$1/$f'

edited Jun 22 at 15:07

answered Jun 22 at 10:42

Stéphane Chazelas

585k96 gold badges1.1k silver badges1.7k bronze badges

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terdon · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-23 09:53:18Z

With bash one approach could be something like this.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

shopt -s nullglob
files=(*.rar)
shopt -u nullglob

while LC_ALL=C IFS= read -rd '' file; do
  file_name="${file%%.*}"                      ##: Extract the file_name without the extension
  mkdir -vp -- "${file_name}" || exit          ##: Create the directory according to the file_name
  mv -v -- "$file" "$file_name" || exit        ##: Move the files to the matching directory name
done < <(printf '%s\0' "${files[@]}")

With your given files/data, the output should be something like:

mkdir: created directory 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC'
renamed 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part01.rar' -> 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part01.rar'
renamed 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part02.rar' -> 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part02.rar'
renamed 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part03.rar' -> 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part03.rar'
renamed 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part04.rar' -> 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part04.rar'
renamed 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part05.rar' -> 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part05.rar'
renamed 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part06.rar' -> 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part06.rar'
renamed 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part07.rar' -> 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part07.rar'
renamed 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part08.rar' -> 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part08.rar'
renamed 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part09.rar' -> 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part09.rar'
renamed 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part10.rar' -> 'LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part10.rar'
mkdir: created directory 'no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3'
renamed 'no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3.part1.rar' -> 'no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3/no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3.part1.rar'
renamed 'no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3.part2.rar' -> 'no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3/no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3.part2.rar'
mkdir: created directory 'NwgdNaort1EqT0ch'
renamed 'NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part1.rar' -> 'NwgdNaort1EqT0ch/NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part1.rar'
renamed 'NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part2.rar' -> 'NwgdNaort1EqT0ch/NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part2.rar'
renamed 'NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part3.rar' -> 'NwgdNaort1EqT0ch/NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part3.rar'
renamed 'NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part4.rar' -> 'NwgdNaort1EqT0ch/NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part4.rar'
mkdir: created directory 'VEwMzBPH91J'
renamed 'VEwMzBPH91J.part1.rar' -> 'VEwMzBPH91J/VEwMzBPH91J.part1.rar'
renamed 'VEwMzBPH91J.part2.rar' -> 'VEwMzBPH91J/VEwMzBPH91J.part2.rar'

More test can be added, like if the file is a directory or something else.
See Parameter Expansion
See Process Substitution
See Why use IFS= and LC_ALL=C
See File name with leading dashes (for the use of --)
See How can I check whether a directory is empty or not?
See How can I find and safely handle file names containing newlines, spaces or both?

A for loop version according to the KISS principle by
Kamil Maciorowski

#!/usr/bin/env bash

shopt -s nullglob
files=(*.rar)
shopt -u nullglob

for file in "${files[@]}"; do
  file_name="${file%%.*}"                 ##: Extract the file_name without the extension
  mkdir -pv -- "${file_name}" || exit     ##: Create the directory according to the file_name
  mv -v -- "$file" "$file_name" || exit   ##: Move the files to the matching directory name
done

In what way is this while LC_ALL=C IFS= read -rd '' file; do … done < <(printf '%s\0' "${files[@]}") better than for file in "${files[@]}"; do … done or even just for file in *.rar; do … done? — Kamil Maciorowski
– Kamil Maciorowski, Commented Jun 22 at 7:10
The last link at my post, and to be clear I did not say it is better. — Jetchisel
– Jetchisel, Commented Jun 22 at 7:14
You can still do that (although there isn't any reason to, nullglob is usually a good idea, and anyway, it will only affect your script, nothing else) if you want, with shopt -s nullglob; for file in *.rar; do ...; done; shopt -u nullglob. The array just adds a layer of complication with no benefit. — terdon
– terdon ♦, Commented Jun 23 at 10:46
No, not at all. That's one of the main reasons why it is preferred over other approaches. Your array will also handle such file names correctly, but so will the simple for. — terdon
– terdon ♦, Commented Jun 23 at 11:24

cas · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-22 22:15:16Z

Using perl rename and perl's File::Basename module (which is included with perl). I've included some minimal safety checking to make sure it actually succeeds creating the directory:

$ rename -n 'use File::Basename;
             my ($bn, undef, $ext) = fileparse($_, qr/\.part.*/);
             mkdir $bn;
             die "Error creating directory \"$bn\".\n" unless -d $bn;
             s:$_:$bn/$bn$ext:' *.rar
rename(LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part01.rar, LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part01.rar)
rename(LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part02.rar, LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part02.rar)
rename(LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part03.rar, LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part03.rar)
rename(LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part04.rar, LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part04.rar)
rename(LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part05.rar, LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part05.rar)
rename(LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part06.rar, LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part06.rar)
rename(LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part07.rar, LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part07.rar)
rename(LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part08.rar, LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part08.rar)
rename(LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part09.rar, LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part09.rar)
rename(LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part10.rar, LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC/LQ0gfKQej7GKG44Cn0sSAC.part10.rar)
rename(no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3.part1.rar, no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3/no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3.part1.rar)
rename(no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3.part2.rar, no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3/no9e1hvqlVEbYHs9YU3.part2.rar)
rename(NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part1.rar, NwgdNaort1EqT0ch/NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part1.rar)
rename(NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part2.rar, NwgdNaort1EqT0ch/NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part2.rar)
rename(NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part3.rar, NwgdNaort1EqT0ch/NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part3.rar)
rename(NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part4.rar, NwgdNaort1EqT0ch/NwgdNaort1EqT0ch.part4.rar)
rename(VEwMzBPH91J.part1.rar, VEwMzBPH91J/VEwMzBPH91J.part1.rar)
rename(VEwMzBPH91J.part2.rar, VEwMzBPH91J/VEwMzBPH91J.part2.rar)

The -n makes this a dry-run. Remove the -n (or replace it with -v for verbose output) when you're sure it's going to do what you want.

Note: this will work whether the .rar files are in the current directory or if you have to specify the full path. The sub-directories will be created in the current directory. It wouldn't be hard to change the script to create the subdirs in a different directory if needed.

As usual, don't confuse perl rename with the rename in util-linux. Check which version you have by running rename -V. If it mentions perl or File::Rename, it's the perl version.

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