How to Rename a File in Linux Terminal

File Rename in Linux

Linux is a very powerful operating system and it is used by a large number of companies and individuals. Some of the most popular Linux distributions are Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, SUSE, CentOS, Kali Linux and many more. There are a lot of features in Linux but the one thing that is missing is the renaming feature. In this article, we will see how to rename a file in Linux.

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How to rename a file in Linux?

Rename a file in Linux is easy, and you can use different methods to rename a file.

Command line method

The first method is command line. In this method, you will use the mv command and the syntax will be as follows.

mv {file name} {new file name}

For example, you want to change the file name of myfile.txt to mynewfile.txt. So, you will execute the following command in the terminal.

mv myfile.txt mynewfile.txt

You can use this method to rename a file to a new name. The above method works only in Linux.

Command line method

This is another way to rename a file. If you want to rename a file by giving a new name to the file then you will use the mv command and the syntax will be as follows.

mv {source file} {destination file}

For example, you want to change the file name of myfile.txt to mynewfile.txt. So, you will execute the following command in the terminal.

mv myfile.txt mynewfile.txt

This method is also used to rename a file. If you want to rename a file to a new name, then you will use the mv command.

Using a GUI

If you want to rename a file without using the command line method, then you will use the graphical interface. To do that, you will use the nautilus.

Open the file manager using the following command.

nautilus

Click on the file that you want to rename and right click to open the context menu. You will see the option to rename the file.

Conclusion:

These are the two most common ways to rename a file. If you want to learn more about the renaming process in Linux then you can refer to the official documentation.