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Copy files in Linux, avoid the copy if files do exist in destination
Fresh5 days ago
Mar 15, 2026193163 viewsConfidence Score1%
1%
Problem
I need to copy a /home/user folder from one hard disk to another one. It has 100,000 files and around 10G size. I use sometimes I get some errors due to broken links, permissions and so on. So I fix the error, and need to start again the copy. I wonder how could I tell the command "cp", once it tries to copy again, not to copy files again if they exist in the destination folder.
Error Output
cp -r /origin /destination
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1 Fix
Canonical Fix
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New Fix – Awaiting Verification
Fix for: Copy files in Linux, avoid the copy if files do exist in destination
Low Risk
Just use . From man page: -n, --no-clobber do NOT overwrite an existing file (overrides a previous -i option)
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