Find and Move Conflicted Files With Bash

  • 9/7/2011
  • One-minute read

Cloud-sync and version-control tools often leave duplicate files labelled conflicted. The command below collects them into a temporary directory for manual review.

Command

find . -type f -name '*conflicted*' -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d '' file; do
  mv "$file" /tmp/conflicted-files/
done

Explanation

  • find . -type f -name '*conflicted*' limits results to regular files.
  • -print0 and the read -d '' loop handle paths with spaces.
  • Files are moved into /tmp/conflicted-files/ so they can be inspected or deleted safely.

Safety Tips

  • Create the destination directory first: mkdir -p /tmp/conflicted-files.
  • Replace mv with echo while testing to avoid moving unintended files.
  • On production servers, run the command under a non-root account and capture a backup before bulk operations.
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