$ cp

Copy files and directories

DOCUMENTEDFiles & directoriesUbuntu 24.04 LTS baseline

Synopsis

cp [OPTION]... SOURCE... DIRECTORY

What it does

`cp` copies SOURCE to DESTINATION.
Use `-r`/`--recursive` when copying directories.

Examples

Copy a file

cp file.txt backup.txt

Copy a file into a directory

cp file.txt backups/

Copy a directory recursively

cp -r project/ project-backup/

Important details

These examples are intentionally conservative. Command behavior can still depend on filesystem state, permissions, locale, shell, installed package version, and other system configuration. For exact option semantics, the linked authoritative documentation is the source of truth.

Authoritative documentation

Ubuntu / GNU documentation ↗ Ubuntu Manpage Repository ↗